To his supporters, globalization is an evolutionary process natural and inevitable that it belongs within the global village, would generate growth and prosperity for all. The peoples of the Third World might have access to work and improve their standard of living only by integrating into world markets. In fact, globalization is not a natural process of inclusion, but a global project of exclusion, to channel resources and knowledge of the poor South to the world market, depriving its people of their production systems for food, thus denying them their livelihoods and their traditional lifestyles.
The rules of world trade, as they are set by the Agriculture and the Agreement on intellectual property rights related to trade in the WTO (TRIPS, TRIPS or in English), they tend primarily to allow the theft camouflaged under a legal phraseology and arithmetic. In reaching this subtraction, the companies come out winning, even as people and nature are the big losers.
The general aim of the WTO, namely the promotion of "competition liberal, favors a dual function. First, transform all aspects of life into commodities.
culture, biodiversity, food, water, livelihoods, needs and rights: everything is reduced and transformed into the market. Secondly, to justify the destruction of nature, culture and livelihoods by the laws of competition. Policy makers take issue with the ethical and ecological rules that allow the preservation of life, calling them obstacles "protectionist" trade. In reality, the WTO does not reduce protectionism: it replaces the protection of people and nature with that of large enterprises.
The appropriation by transnational resources of the poor of the Third World has not only been made possible by the lowering or elimination of tariff barriers, a major objective of the WTO. It was facilitated by the abolition of any ethical and ecological limit to what can be held in a private capacity and be traded. Globalization thus perfects the colonization, which had resulted in the conquest of land and nell'accaparramento and whole territories. Biological resources and water, the very foundations of life are being colonized, privatized and reduced to the status of goods.
agriculture, activities of cultural and social character, which remains the main means of existence of the three quarters of humanity, is equally threatened by the "trade liberalization", so under the aegis of structural adjustment programs of the World Bank and IMF, as of agricolo del WTO. La globalizzazione dei sistemi agricolo e alimentare è infatti sinonimo di appropriazione della catena alimentare da parte dei grandi gruppi, di erosione del diritto di disporre di cibo sano e sufficiente, di distruzione della diversità culturale degli alimenti, della diversità biologica delle culture, e di spostamento di milioni di contadini, privati dei loro mezzi di esistenza. Il libero scambio mondiale nell’agricoltura e nell’alimentazione è la più grande fabbrica di profughi, superando largamente la tragedia del Kosovo. È l’equivalente di un programma di purificazione etnica dei poveri, dei contadini e dei piccoli agricoltori del Terzo Mondo.
GLOBALIZZAZIONE DELL’AGRICOLTURA INDIANA
The liberalization of trade and investment have caused an upheaval in Indian agriculture, the effect on small farmers has been devastating. It has resulted in: •
replacing food crops with crops produced for export, which reduced food security;
• an influx of imports that eliminated the local producers and local diversity;
• an opening that allows the trans to take control of the food.
The switch to crops for export
Cotton: seeds of suicide
Economic globalization leads to a concentration of the seed sector, the penetration of agriculture by large corporations, the growing use of pesticides, in increasing debt, despair and sometimes suicide of small farmers. Agriculture in densely capital in the hands of large companies spread in regions where the peasants were certainly poor, but enjoyed the food self-sufficiency. In regions where industrial agriculture has been introduced, the cost increase is virtually impossible the survival of small farmers.
The new politics of production in exporting vocation, part of the globalization of agriculture, led to the abandonment of food crops to the advantage of growing export commodities such as cotton. The cultivation of cotton has become widespread even in semi-arid regions, such as Warangal, Andhra Pradesh, where farmers traditionally grew rice, millet, beans - in particular pod - and oil plants. Lured by the promise that the cotton would have been a "white gold", a source of big profits, the farmers of Warangal has almost tripled la sua superficie nel corso dell’ultimo decennio, riducendo radicalmente la tradizionale produzione di semi commestibili, come il jawar e il bajra.
Ma questi contadini hanno imparato che, se queste coltivazioni redditizie possono raggiungere prezzi superiori, esigono pesanti spese. Sotto la pressione delle grandi aziende, hanno in buona misura abbandonato i semi a impollinazione naturale, una parte dei quali accantonavano per le successive semine, a vantaggio di ibridi che dovevano comprare ogni anno a caro prezzo. Essendo questi ibridi molto vulnerabili agli attacchi degli insetti, ha dovuto essere aumentato l’uso dei pesticidi. Gli acquisti di pesticidi nella regione sono passati da 2,5 milioni di dollari negli anni Ottanta a 50 milioni per il solo year 1977, an increase of 2000%. Poor farmers could deal with these costs only debt.
As liberalization has also resulted in budget savings for agricultural training and the elimination of credits with low interest rate granted by the cooperative and public sector banks, the peasants had to resort to usurious credit granted by the same companies that sell their seeds hybrids and pesticides. These major groups are therefore at the same time become lenders under warranty, professors of agriculture, seed merchants and suppliers of chemicals. Farmers today are bent under the burden of a debt that can not repay. This financial pressure is responsible for an epidemic suicide in the Warangal region: More than 500 farmers have been given the death in 1988, others have followed suit in 1999.
In regions where the high costs of industrial agriculture already pushing farmers to suicide, Monsanto sought to introduce genetically engineered cotton seeds. The argument used to promote these seeds in the Third World is that it increases yields. However, we have witnessed the growth and decrease their use of pesticides. In a form of protest, farmers in Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka have eradicated transgenic cotton. The Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology has laid a plan before the Supreme Court seeking To prevent the introduction of these genetically modified products in agriculture in India. The thesis is that genetic engineering will lie with new environmental and economic risks that Third World farmers can not afford to take.
The shrimp farms
The transition from a policy that gives priority needs are food, which gives priority to the export was justified in relying on food security. It was believed that the benefits would pay export import food. In fact, l’agricoltura a vocazione esportatrice ha diminuito la sicurezza alimentare causando l’abbandono di una vitale produzione su piccola scala, a vantaggio di una produzione industriale su grande scala e non vitale. Essa provoca anche cambiamenti nella proprietà delle risorse naturali e dei mezzi di produzione che, dalle mani di piccoli produttori-proprietari autonomi, passano a quelle di grosse imprese, se non addirittura ad aziende transnazionali. I contadini debbono migrare mentre le loro terre sono accaparrate e coltivate in produzioni industriali d’esportazione, in particolare di gamberetti, fiori, ortaggi e carne. Queste imprese hanno spesso un impatto ecologico negativo, rendendo ancora più difficile l’esistenza delle comunità premises. The shrimp aquaculture
transformation in India illustrates perfectly what are the social and ecological costs of industrial agriculture. While small indigenous herds were vital for centuries requires the export of shrimps to create industrial farming. Each hectare of farming requires 200 "hectares to black to absorb the environmental costs of intensive farming. The "hectares to black" is the unit area to provide the necessary resources to a particular economic activity, and absorb waste.
If shrimp aquaculture is so ecologically disastrous, because it requires to feed the shellfish, quantity industriali di pesce pescato in mare, di cui la maggior parte vi ritorna sotto forma di rifiuti che inquinano l’acqua e distruggono le mangrovie. L’allevamento di gamberetti danneggia ugualmente l’agricoltura costiera: obbliga a pompare acqua di mare per i vivai. Le terre sono salinizzate, le riserve di acqua potabile ridotte, gli alberi e le coltivazioni vicine agli allevamenti distrutti.
Questi costi smentiscono la pretesa dell’esportazione di gamberetti di essere una fonte importante di crescita economica. Per ogni dollaro guadagnato dalle aziende esportatrici verso gli Stati Uniti, l’Europa e il Giappone, si valutano in 10 dollari i danni subiti dalle risorse naturali e la perdita di reddito economico locale in India, se includiamo la distruzione delle mangrovie, delle riserve d’acqua, dell’agricoltura e dei luoghi di pesca.
Gli allevamenti industriali di gamberetti si sono scontrati in India contro una forte resistenza. Nel dicembre 1996, comunità locali ed associazioni ecologiche sono riuscite a farli interdire dalla Corte suprema. Ma gli industriali hanno beneficiato di un rinvio e proseguono la loro attività. Il 29 maggio 1999, quattro pescatori che manifestavano contro questi produttori, definiti “mafia dei gamberetti”, intorno al lago Chilka, nell’Orissa, sono stati uccisi.
Altre coltivazioni d’esportazione: costi che eccedono i benefici
Come quella dei gamberetti, in molti casi le exports of flowers, meat and vegetables are largely in deficit. The massive export of meat, for example, go with a hidden external cost ten times the profits. This is because the ecological contribution of livestock farming country becoming more and more.
Livestock, especially in developing countries, not just "meat feet." The animals are valuable producers of fertilizers, as manure. They also provide energy for the farm activities - plowing and processing operations such as extraction of oil through ghanis. In India, livestock contributes to the production of 17 million dollars milk, 1.5 billion dollars worth of grain, and provides $ 17 million of energy. If the animals are broken down to the butcher, all of these advantages are lost. In the case of a slaughterhouse vocation exporting meat exports generated $ 45 million in revenue, while the estimated contribution of livestock to the economy it would have been felled 230 million.
Under the pressure of the policies alleged "liberalization", food prices have doubled and the poor have had to reduce their consumption by half. The prices have gone up because the food has been exported, creating shortages at home, while food subsidies were abolished. As said a housewife in Bombay, "eat less than twice what we did before prices doubled last year. Even from [fermented lentils] has become a luxury. After the price increase, I stopped buying the milk. "
agriculture vocation to export also creates a kind of apartheid agriculture. It asks the Third World to stop producing products of basic and dedicate to the cultivation of luxury goods for rich countries of the North. Result? The production of basic foodstuffs in the United States is now concentrated in the hands of some multinational semenzieri and cereal.
Imports: diversity abused
Essendo i paesi costretti a distruggere i loro sistemi agricoli per produrre per l’esportazione, la diversità biologica e culturale sparisce. La soia proveniente dagli Stati Uniti si sostituisce ai cereali, alle leguminose e alle piante oleaginose più diverse. Da un lato le esportazioni annientano i sistemi locali di agricoltura per uso alimentare deviando le risorse e modificando i regimi di proprietà, dall’altro le importazioni sfociano nello stesso risultato accaparrando i mercati.
Nell’agosto 1999, una faccenda di olio di mostarda adulterato, circoscritta alla città di Delhi, colpì tutte le marche locali di olio. Il governo vietò l’olio di mostarda – l’olio da cottura più utilizzato North India - and abolished all restrictions on imports of cooking oils. Imports of soybean and soybean oil were liberalized or deregulated. In one season, the millions of farmers who cultivated oilseeds producers of mustard, groundnut, sesame and niger, they lost their various markets. Soybean imports have destroyed the entire production and processing of edible oils in India. Millions of small mills were closed. Prices of oilseeds have collapsed. The farmers can not even recoup their investment. Sesame, flax and mustard to disappear from the field As the soybean import low-priced and subsidized, floods the market India. Taken together, these imports amounted to 3 million tonnes a year (or 60% increase compared to previous years). The cost amounts to $ 1 billion, which aggravates the situation of the country's balance of payments.
American Soy is cheap, not that its production cost is low, but is subsidized. A ton is $ 155, but this price is only possible because the U.S. government pays $ 193 per ton to its producers, which could not survive on this market price. This aid is not just a state agricultural grant, but an indirect subsidy to exporters. When this generous support has flooded soybean the Indian market, prices have fallen by more than two-thirds. The local industry transformation - from small mills ghanis up to the most important - is on the verge of bankruptcy. The domestic production of oilseeds declined and prices have plummeted. The peanut price has fallen by almost 25%, 48 to 37 rupees per kilo. Peasants demonstrating against the collapse of their markets have been killed.
Processing and packaging under the control of large companies
The food world is now trying to stealing food processing industry. So, are passed fresh food, locally produced, for archaic, while those stored in aluminum or plastic would be "modern." Processing and packaging industry have focused on the first cooking oils, destroying, with imports of soybeans, the means of existence of the managers of oil mills and small farmers. Wheat is now the subject of a similar attempt. The Indian economy
corn - called Kanak, which means "gold" in northern India - is based on local systems of production, processing and distribution on a small scale. The wheat and its flour (atta) ensure the livelihoods and food to millions of farmers, traders (artis) and managers of local mills (chakki wallas).
Taken as a whole, the economy of decentralized production and food processing, small-scale and family is enormous. It provides livelihoods to millions of people by ensuring the supply of fresh food, complete, affordable. This production and processing have also no negative ecological impact.
The millions of Indian farmers annually produce 6.05 billion tons of grain. The consumers buy the majority in the form of grains near the bazaar (Kirana) and take him to the local chakki walla. A chain of artis start the wheat from the farm to the local small shops.
is estimated at more than 3.5 million the number of shops families provide wheat to Indian consumers, while more than 2 million small local mills produce the fresh flour, ground at home as well as by millions of housewives. The mill oblong (Belan) used to make rotis has always been a symbol of the power of women. It is often said, incorrectly, that only 2% of food are processed in India. The error stems from the fact that official statistics ignore the work of women in the house and its contribution to the national economy. While 40 million tonnes of wheat are sold only 15 million are bought as likely, because the Indians appreciate the freshness and quality of food. Less than 1% of flour consumed has a brand name, preferring to control the Indians themselves chakki quality at local, rather than buying packaged.
This decentralized economy, small-scale, based on millions of producers, artisans and merchants, working with a very low capital and infrastructure, replacing labor. However, this economy centered on people to prevent large groups of agri derive great benefits. So they set their sights on the economy of Indian corn to turn into a source of profits. In a report titled
industry Faida (Profit), misuse of this economy from the global agribusiness is descritto come un’“opportunità da non mancare”. La strategia consiste nel rendere i contadini direttamente dipendenti dagli oligopoli dell’agroalimentare per l’acquisto di elementi di base come i semi, nell’impedire la fornitura locale di questi ultimi e nell’eliminare gli artis e i chakki wallas locali.
Distruggere i mezzi di esistenza di milioni di persone grazie ai quali funziona l’economia locale decentralizzata e impedire ai consumatori di procurarsi farina fresca a buon mercato, vuol dire “modernizzare la catena alimentare”! nel Terzo Mondo, gli alimenti sotto imballaggio passano per essere un cibo da ricchi. In realtà, i ricchi dei paesi industrializzati preferiscono gli alimenti fresh, since the poor have to fall back on packaged or canned food.
The Indian economy and of the grain is extremely complex and sophisticated. But the food down the underdeveloped world because the big groups such as Cargill and Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) does not control it. Faida The report states: "The sector of the Indian wheat is currently at a stage of embryonic development. Despite its importance, is still one of the earliest stages of progress. "
If the Indian economy of the wheat is considered underdeveloped, principally because the border is missing. Underdevelopment is synonymous with the absence of domain by large companies. 'Development' is defined then as the appropriation of the economy of the latter.
systems of decentralized small-scale food production and under local control are called "embryonic" and "underdeveloped". Monopolistic systems are called "developed". It should therefore move the confiscation of the food system for the 'natural evolution "from small to big. The freshness and character of the healthy foods are related to an "inferior technology", while the altered flour sold under a brand are "higher quality". This attitude is reflected in perverse una sezione del rapporto Faida: “Conseguenza della tecnologia inadeguata utilizzata dai mugnai, la durata di conservazione prima della vendita della farina oscilla in India da quindici a venti giorni, il che è molto poco a paragone dei sei mesi/un anno ottenuti negli Stati Uniti”. Ciò che il rapporto non dice, è che i fornitori che appongono il loro marchio sui pacchi non possono fare altro che garantire una conservazione di lunga durata, tenuto conto delle enormi distanze tra la fabbrica e i mercati.
Doppio linguaggio nel più puro stile orwelliano per mettere le mani sul grano dei contadini indiani: la decentralizzazione è definita “frammentazione”, la centralizzazione, “integrazione”. In realtà, decentralized, locally controlled systems are highly integrated. Those with centralized control are accompanied by the disintegration of ecosystems and local business communities.
-food giants are trying right now to encourage consumers to question their Indian systems of quality control and trust the brand names. They aspire to dominate a market capable of producing 10 billion rupees of profits thanks to sales of wheat flour in the package. The objective is to establish monopolies on wheat in India, such as Monsanto, Novartis, DuPont and Zeneca. By controlling the supply of other basic elements, these require semenzieri monopoly property rights. Forcing farmers to pay them royalties. This trend drag the entire country into an agricultural economy which involved only a small number of people. And only to drive tractors or spread pesticides. The farmers lost all their other functions: all those guardians of diversity, soil and water managers, seed producers. Faida
According to the report, the control of the food chain by large groups "create" 5 million jobs. But everyone knows that giant companies invest in technologies that eliminate labor. Thus, ADM is the head of a fleet of 200 grain silos, 800 trucks, 1900 and 30000 cars barges to transport and store cereals. The number of jobs created by ADM is insignificant. The company is using pneumatic tools for storing grain in silos, and other techniques to reduce labor costs. If we take into account the 20/30 million farmers, of the 5 million chakki wallas, the 5 million artis, of the 3.5 million kiranas (shops), all those who are living, the industrialization of its own, economy grain will destroy the livelihoods and nutrition of at least 100 million people.
driving forces of globalization of agribusiness giants
agribusiness giants like Monsanto and Cargill, in their efforts to take over the global agricultural economy, from the sale of seeds and other basics to the processing and marketing of food, took over the process of globalization.
The fusion of chemical companies, pharmaceutical, biotech and semenzieri conglomerate specializing in "life sciences" is one of the most alarming developments of the last decade. "Science of death" would be more appropriate. These companies produce transgenic seeds resistant to herbicides, making farmers dependent on chemicals. Destroy biodiversity and make agriculture more vulnerable. Also produce seeds geneticamente manipolati sterili, grazie alla tecnologia “Terminator”: gli agricoltori non possono più mettere da parte i semi per le successive semine e sono costretti a comprarne ogni anno.
L’accordo agricolo del WTO
L’aggiustamento strutturale e la liberalizzazione degli scambi hanno cacciato dalle loro terre milioni di contadini nel mondo. L’aumento dei costi di produzione e il crollo del prezzo delle derrate li hanno portati al fallimento. Invece di appoggiare politiche che aiuterebbero gli agricoltori a sopravvivere, le regole del WTO condannano i piccoli agricoltori alla scomparsa. Esse garantiscono il dominio delle aziende transnazionali sull’agricoltura.
L’accordo Agriculture of the WTO has established, under pressure from the United States during the Uruguay Round of GATT, a system of regulation of agricultural trade liberalization. Its rules do not favor or to the protection of food safety or that of nature or culture. On the other hand, are perfectly the sights of the large companies monopolize the food chain.
The Agreement applies to countries, and not they nor their peasants to engage in international trade of agricultural products, but rather the transnational corporations such as Cargill. Any clause that marginalize farmers by eliminating the farm supports are useful to them. The same applies to all the clauses that deregulated international trade, liberalizing imports and exports and make their illegal restriction. The opening of the market encouraged by the Agriculture simply open them to the various Cargill and Monsanto.
The results of the negotiations prior to signing the Agreement on Agriculture are not surprising when you know the enormous influence exerted in agribusiness giants such as horseback riding. The American delegation was in fact led by Clayton Yeutter, a former Cargill. The Agreement contains three main parts: •
the domestic support to production;
• facilitare l’accesso ai mercati;
• le sovvenzioni all’esportazione.
I sostegni interni alla produzione
Le clausole del WTO relative ai “sostegni interni alla produzione” imponevano di ridurre questi sostegni ai produttori del 20% prima della fine del 1999, in rapporto ai livelli nazionali del periodo 1986-1988. Per i paesi in via di sviluppo, la riduzione è del 13%, da raggiungere prima di dieci anni. Il sostegno è definito con una formula chiamata “misura globale di sostegno” (MGS). La MGS tiene conto di tutte le politiche nazionali di sostegno il cui effetto è giudicato significativo sul volume della produzione. The MGS is nothing but a way to anesthetize the public to the appropriation of the food industry by large companies to go unnoticed. By classifying the various forms of support on a system of "boxes" green, blue and orange very complicated and confusing, the WTO has raised a smokescreen to prevent their citizens and policy makers to understand what happens.
Trade liberalization India has imposed an additional burden even subsidizing chemical fertilizers. The subsidy policy of the WTO is clearly in favor of industry and agribusiness oligopolies North and poor farmers, particularly in the Third World.
Facilitating access to markets
The WTO agreement on imports of food, titled "Market Access", is exposed to in Articles IV and V and Annex III to the third party. All signatory countries must convert all its quantitative restrictions on imports and all other non-tariff measures in "ordinary customs duties" - that is what is called "charging". Countries are required to allow minimum access to their markets, starting from 1% of domestic consumption in the first year of the application period, to reach 2% at the beginning of the fifth year for the annual regular degrees, then 4%. The "possibility of market access" is defined in "proportion to their importance in relation to the corresponding domestic consumption."
The customs duties and similar must be reduced by 36% (24% for developing countries) to facilitate imports at the lowest possible price. These rights are based on the difference between the actual price and the minimum import price (the latter is the average price from 1986 to 1988). The removal of quantitative restrictions on imports is one of the major objectives of trade liberalization.
According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), la fattura delle importazioni alimentari dell’Africa sarà aumentata da 8,4 a 14,9 miliardi di dollari nel 2000 a causa delle misure di liberalizzazione degli scambi. Questa crescita delle importazioni rappresenterà 0,9 miliardi di dollari per l’America latina e i Caraibi, 27 miliardi per l’Estremo Oriente, dove il deficit commerciale si sarà accentuato passando da 11 a 19 miliardi di dollari nel 2000.
Le sovvenzioni all’esportazione
Gli articoli da VIII a XI dell’accordo agricolo trattano delle esportazioni sotto il titolo “Concorrenza all’esportazione”. La giustificazione ufficiale di questo accordo è la soppressione delle sovvenzioni all’esportazione che have facilitated the sale of large amount of excess of the European Union and the United States on the world market. The main terms of the agreement in this regard are the following: •
export subsidies, measured by the volume of subsidized exports and budget expenditure allocated to grants, have been reduced;
• , developed countries must reduce by 21% the volume of their subsidized exports by 36% and the budget expenditure allocated to grants, over a period of six years (1995-2000);
• , for countries development, these reductions were respectively 14 and 24% over a period of ten years instead of six (1995-2004). Their governments may continue to subsidize the marketing exports of agricultural products, particularly their handling and their improvement, and other processing operations, as well as the costs of transport and cargo domestic and international;
• the agreement prevents the prohibition of exports, even in years of national shortage.
The liberalization of exports was justified with the opening of agricultural markets in the North Indian products. But exports to India l’Europa sono declinate dal 13 al 6%. In effetti, sovvenzioni elevate e barriere protezioniste sono state in gran parte mantenute nel Nord. La liberalizzazione degli scambi è piuttosto a senso unico: apre i mercati del Sud alle imprese del Nord, ma chiude quelli del Nord alle esportazioni del Sud.
L’accordo agricolo autorizza sempre le sovvenzioni dirette all’esportazione, 14,5 miliardi di dollari in totale. Quelle che sono permesse ai paesi in via di sviluppo non sono destinate ai contadini ai contadini e ai poveri, ma alle società commerciali che, contrariamente ai primi, esportano. I governi del Terzo Mondo hanno dunque il diritto di sostenere le grosse imprese, ma non i loro agricoltori e i loro poveri. Essi possono continuare to subsidize the transportation, processing and marketing of products, but not uprooted or deprived.
Under WTO rules, thus benefiting the transnational subsidies granted to them in both the North and the South New to agricultural subsidies in the North were not affected by the WTO. Since its creation, the United States have developed their export credits and their marketing programs. Until the loans made to Third World countries by the IMF, which were used to subsidize U.S. agribusiness exports!
Dan Glickman, U.S. Secretary of State for Agriculture, said: "If our exports to Asia is not decreased by more, it is because [the Ministry of Agriculture] has provided 2.1 billion dollars of export credits. Without the intervention of the IMF, they risked losing $ 2 billion of exports in the short term and more long-term. "
In 1996, the U.S. Farm Bill has allocated $ 5.5 billion to the promotion of exports and an additional one billion was released to support sales to "emerging markets". Finally, 90 million dollars allocated to programs known as "market access", were distributed to food companies for promoting their products abroad
Whether it's domestic support to production, market access or export subsidies, WTO rules are intended to preserve and increase aid to large companies, and to suppress those farmers and rural communities. The protection of farmers, food security and agriculture durable require radical changes in the Agriculture Agreement.
The need for a new paradigm
To get there, you must create a movement around a new paradigm of agriculture and food needs. We must understand that trade liberalization is at the root of environmental degradation and the poor of the South, perdita dei loro mezzi di esistenza. Anche quando le esportazioni sono possibili, esse avvengono spesso a un prezzo sociale ed ecologico esorbitante per il Sud. Le importazioni e le esportazioni non devono dunque essere forzate, le regole del WTO debbono essere emendate, l’agricoltura e l’alimentazione esentate dalla “disciplina” del libero scambio per rispondere agli obiettivi di sicurezza alimentare e di protezione dell’ambiente.
Il commercio non può e non deve essere l’obiettivo prioritario che governa i sistemi di produzione e distribuzione delle derrate. Una tale filosofia implica il controllo degli interessi commerciali, detto altrimenti, il controllo delle aziende transnazionali, per le quali l’alimentazione è fonte di profitti e non fonte di vita e di mezzi di esistenza. Siccome i loro profitti possono crescere solo distruggendo sistemi autosufficienti, la globalizzazione dell’agricoltura non può che causare il genocidio. Per proteggere la vita degli uomini e delle altre specie, è indispensabile rimettere in discussione la logica del libero scambio.
La protezione delle agricolture nazionali deve essere considerata un imperativo della sicurezza alimentare. Le regole del WTO non debbono ridurla, annientando l’agricoltura locale e i sistemi alimentari con il dumping sovvenzionato. Impedire il genocidio innalzando barriere doganali, è un imperativo morale.
I paesi del Terzo Mondo sono oggi costretti a praticare un’agricoltura a exporting vocation because of their debt and chronic deficits in their balance of payments. Their exports should be facilitated by trade fair, from a business that is not founded on either the destruction of the environment and local food economies, nor on the movement of small farmers. This trade fair will be set up by the free-trade rules of market access decreed by the WTO, which apply to the South but not in the North. It requires a spirit of solidarity and cooperation rules. You need to create a movement that tends to enable countries to exclude from the food and agricultural free trade agreements, so that ecological considerations and social justice can determine the modes of production, distribution and consumption of food.
Intellectual Property and Biopiracy
Food security and agriculture in the Third World are not only threatened by the Agriculture of the WTO. Equally dangerous is revealed agreement on intellectual property rights related to trade (TRIPS), concluded during the Uruguay Round of GATT, which sets rules universally applicable to patents, copyrights and trademarks. They now encompass the living so that genes, cells, seeds, plants and animals can be patented and henceforth become the subject of a property right intellettuale. I paesi in via di sviluppo sono perciò costretti a riorganizzare i loro modi di produzione e consumo, per permettere la costituzione di monopoli da parte dei grandi gruppi delle “scienze della vita”. Gruppi che sono in realtà mercanti di morte.
Le conseguenze degli ADPIC per la biodiversità e i diritti dei popoli del Sud alla loro diversità saranno gravi. Nessuno potrà più produrre e riprodurre liberamente tutto ciò che, nell’ambito agricolo, medico o dell’allevamento sarà stato brevettato. Questo scalzerà i mezzi di esistenza dei piccoli produttori e impedirà ai poveri di mettere a profitto le loro risorse e le loro conoscenze per soddisfare i loro bisogni alimentari e sanitari base. To use these products will have to pay royalties to patent holders. Any unauthorized production will be penalized, which will increase the debt burden. Farmers, doctors and traditional Indian traders will lose their share of local markets, national and global.
Neither TRIPS nor the U.S. patent law to know how to recognize the common good. They deny the contribution of innovation in collective accumulated from centuries of local knowledge systems. To protect indigenous knowledge, the TRIPs and U.S. patent law should therefore be amended. Only a reform of the Western intellectual property regimes, inherently defective, stroncherà The epidemic of biopiracy. If you do not put an end to biopiracy, the daily survival of ordinary Indians will be threatened as they resources and indigenous knowledge will be transformed into world trade in patented goods. The right to protect the food, health and knowledge of a billion Indians, two thirds of whom lack the means to meet their basic needs on the world market, that's what they feed the profits of the transnational. The patenting of indigenous knowledge and use of the plant is a true act of piracy of intellectual and biological commons from which the poor depend. Stripped of their rights, in particular to freely use nature - Only the capital at their disposal - the poor of the Third World are bound to disappear. As the different species they depend on for life, even they are a species threatened with extinction.
The real Millennium Round of WTO should be the start of a new democratic debate on the future of Earth and its inhabitants. The rules undemocratic and centralized structures of the WTO and establish the hegemony of transnational monopoly based on monocultures and must leave room for a global democracy that rests on decentralization and diversity. The rights of all species and all people need to be placed above that of firms to create unlimited profits on a process unlimited destruction.
Free trade does not create freedom, but slavery. The living is enslaved by the patent, farmers, high technology, countries from debt, dependence and disintegration of their national economy. We want the new millennium is that of democracy and not economic totalitarianism. Humanity and other species have a future only if the principles of competition, organized greed, commodification of all life, monocultures, and the monopolization of centralized control exercised by large corporations on our daily lives, enshrined in the WTO rules will be replaced by the principles of protection of people and nature, from promote and share the diversity, decentralization and self-organization incorporated in our cultures and our national constitutions.
WTO rules violate principles of human rights and ecological survival. Violate the rules of justice and vitality. These are the rules of war against the planet and its inhabitants. Editing must be the watchword of the struggle of our time for democracy and human rights. It is a matter of survival.
Arianna Editrice
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