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2005-01-06 19:52:07 |
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 KoPA |
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 Food_is_Not_for_Sale.doc (28.5 KB), Download : 407 |
 Food is Not for Sale! We Call for Complete Invalidation of Rice Negotiations! |
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The peasants are still fighting against the liberalization, now under the recognition that they have no where to go should rice be liberalized through the re-negotiations....
Food is Not for Sale!
We Call for Complete Invalidation of Rice Negotiations!
Despite the cold weather, the struggles of peasants to secure food sovereignty are all the more becoming intense, with peasant leaders continuing their hunger strike in front of Kwanghwamoon and the Presidential Office, and women peasants occupying Cargill Seoul Office. Liberalization of agriculture, which came as the result of Uruguay Rounds of 1994, has led to devastation of rural areas. The peasants are still fighting against the liberalization, now under the recognition that they have no where to go should rice be liberalized through the re-negotiations.
However, the Noh Moo-Hyun government has completely ignored the desperate demands of the peasants. The government announced on 30th December that rice re-negotiations have concluded and that they will report the results to the WTO. The result of the re-negotiations is that in exchange for extending postponement of tariffication for another ten years, the compulsory import quota will be increased from the present 4% to 7.9% and furthermore, imported rice will be sold at public markets. Although the government announced that it had succeeded in postponing tariffication, the result of the negotiations will in fact open all doors to import of rice.
At the demand of peasants to stop the negotiations, the government has merely responded by saying that if Korea doesn’t gain postponement of tariffication within this year, then rice will automatically be tariffed as of 2005, and speeded up the negotiation process. This position of the government manifests that the primary interest of the government is not ‘preventing the collapse of agriculture and minimizing sacrifice of farmers’ but that ‘liberalization of rice is inevitable, thus the negotiations should be concluded as soon as possible’. The government has merely expedited the liberalization process but tells a lie that it had “made an effort and gained a positive result.” On top of it all, the government even calls for peasants to restructure themselves during the ten year postponement and gain competitiveness.
However, ‘restructuring of agriculture’ that the government calls for is nothing more than ‘giving up agriculture altogether’. During the last few years, the government has continuously decreased rice production. It adopted policies for urban citizens to own farmland and made way for farmland to remain uncultivated. It had abolished mechanisms that supported price of agricultural goods. In short, agricultural policies of past governments and this government were not those aimed at preserving rural areas but at diminishing agriculture and promoting migration to urban centers. Further liberalization of rice will lead to tariffication and elimination of tariffs, decrease production of rice and pave way for further monopolization by transnational agribusinesses. If environmental catastrophe, set off by climate change, hits us then we might even face a situation in which we will not be able to access rice at all. Giving up agriculture is basically giving up food sovereignty.
Peasants all around the world are saying, “Food is not for sale” and “Food should be excluded from the WTO”. Ever since the WTO transformed agriculture into objects of trade, the benefits have not been equal among peoples of the world. On the other hand, the dominance of transnational agribusinesses has expanded while food diversity at the local level destroyed. Peasants’ rights to land, seed and water have been infringed and we now have more and more peasants starving despite the fact that they are themselves producers of food.
Struggles of peasants to protect food sovereignty continue even today, all around the country. How is the government going to deal with the catastrophe that will be brought on by the destruction of livelihood of peasants, collapse of rural areas and loss of food sovereignty? If the government is not able to come up with solutions, then it must completely invalidate the rice negotiations.
30th December, 2004
Korean People’s Action against FTAs and WTO (KoPA)
<Photo: Peasants on top of Independence Gate with banners saying "Rice Negotiations Invalid", 20th December 2004. Media Chamsaesang> |
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