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A bleak scenario
Roshan Malik
Trade liberalisation is much more on the agenda of the North than reducing hunger from the globe. All their efforts are focused on extracting as much as they can from multilateral agreements and leave the poor nations more vulnerable.
World Food Day is observed throughout the world on the founding anniversary of UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) on 16 October 1945. Its mandate was to improve the standards of living and raise the level of nutrition by increasing agricultural productivity. Since its inception, the FAO has tried to alleviate hunger and poverty from the globe by ensuring food security, while conserving and managing natural resources.
FAO is focusing on "Water: a Source of Food Security" on World Food Day 2002 and the message is, "The world can find enough water to produce the food needed for future generations, if we manage water wisely, now!" Agriculture is responsible for the consumption of 70% of the freshwater withdrawn. By the year 2030, the world will require 60% more food, out of which 80 % will be produced by agriculture supported by irrigation water.
The FAO is rightly convinced that wise management of water and its more efficient use is highly required as a source of food security. But what about other sources of food security, which the FAO has sensitised in the past? All such sources of food security are corporatised by the MNCs.
The World Food Summit (WFS) 1996 had pledged to provide food security for all and efforts to eradicate hunger from the world by reducing the number of undernourished people to half no later than 2015. In 1996-98, 826m people were estimated by the FAO to be undernourished, with about 792m from the developing countries. But the FAO itself admitted that the set target would not be achieved because of the lack of political will among member nations to reduce hunger.
The WFS 2002 Five Years Later showed how much the North is interested in reducing hunger from the world. No prominent Head of the State from the North was present, except Italy as host and Spain's Prime Minister representing the European Union. Delegates present were not of the capacity to make any financial commitment to reduce hunger from the poor countries, because it was not on the agenda of their countries. The declaration emphasises the promotion of biotechnology for reducing hunger, which is in the favour of MNCs and against the poor. Multilateral Trading Systems in the perspective of WTO Agreements, such as Agreement on Agriculture (AoA), Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs), Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) measures, are hurdles for people in their access to food. Trade liberalisation is much more on the agenda of North than reducing hunger from the globe. All their efforts are focused on extracting as much as they can from these multilateral agreements and leave the poor nations more vulnerable. It is the agenda of MNCs, which is being implemented through their pawns like WTO, IMF, World Bank and Asian Development Bank. Now they have even corporatised the WSF and the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) recently held in Johannesburg.
Pakistan's delegation in WSF 2002 was headed by MINFAL minister who in his address, "...In the agriculture sector, de-regulation and liberalisation has been undertaken in conjunction with special support packages to increase agriculture productivity and profitability with a small farmer and pro-poor focus." While paradoxically the initiatives, strategies and policies made by the government for eradication of poverty are loaded against the poor.
The Interim Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (IPRSP) prepared by the government, which has been highly appreciated by the corporate donors and considered to be the basic document for funding in future, is a glaring example of trade liberalisation agenda, rather than an assessment of the prevalent poverty in the country and its eradication. It emphasises more on improving the macro-economic indicators rather than eliminating hunger and ensuring food security. It has set rhetorical targets to bring down the population growth rate and increase the national growth rate. But, it does not give any mechanism or strategy to achieve these targets. On the other hand, it promotes trade liberalisation and claims high production rates. But the mechanism of distribution of food is absent, which is the concern of poor.
The Corporate Agriculture Farming (CAF) policy approved by the federal cabinet is another undue favor to MNCs and disaster for small and landless farmers. The proponents of this policy claim an increase in production in agricultural goods, again ignoring the distribution channel. If the State-owned land(s) may be leased out to corporate firms, why not to the landless poor and unemployed youth, which may be utilised as a factor (labour) of productivity, while the government has already introduced micro-financing scheme (capital) for poverty reduction?
It is ironic that factors of production are for the rich but not for the poor. That is why CAF policy is introduced and is only for corporatisation of our agriculture sector, and is against the interest of small farmers, which are 93%. The small vulnerable farmers will be unable to compete with corporate firms both in quality and cost of production. Ultimately, they will have to sell their lands to corporate firms on low rates and will be included in the ever-expanding vicious circle of poverty.
Pakistan was a staunch supporter of Development Box in the WTO Ministerial Conference in Doha last year. The Development Box is for the food security of the poor people, ie, exemption of food crops and staple food from reduction commitments in AoA. But the Ministry of Finance signed an agreement with the ADB in December 2001, in which the government agreed to reduce its domestic support from the market and closure of provincial and federal food departments within five years.
The financial assistance by ADB will further aggravate the condition of small farmers. They have already been suffering for the last three years when government remained as a second buyer and left them on the mercy of market forces to purchase the yield of small farmers. If the terms of trade are unbalanced, and no support for farmers from the government as a buyer on the one hand, while the yield of corporate firms and imported agricultural goods will prevail in the market on the other, then the fate of small indigenous farmers may be well imagined.
The results of these policies are quite obvious that poverty is increasing day by day. In 1987-88 the rate of poverty was 17.3%; in 1998-99 it was 28.2%; and in the year 2001-02 it is 38%. It clearly shows that these policies should be seriously addressed. Otherwise, it is the development of under-development. To bring the poor out of the trap needs policies based on humanitarian basis while ignoring the corporate interests.
On WFD 2002, all the development agencies and the governments and even MNCs should understand that access to food is every body's basic right and it should not be included in corporate interests. Because "food rights are human rights."
Courtesy The News
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