Mennonite
Central
Committee

The Zeist Declaration on Trade Liberalisation and the Right to Food

The Rev. Malcolm Damon, Co-ordinator of the SACC Public Policy Liaison Unit, participated in the food security summit in Zeist, 18-22 April 1999. The following is the final declaration of the meeting.

Food security is a basic human right. Trade liberalisation and structural adjustment is threatening this right.

Representatives of 57 civil society organisations from Africa, Asia, Latin America and Europe gathered in Zeist (Netherlands) from the 18-22 of April 1999, initiated by APRODEV, to discuss the issues of agriculture and trade policies and the implications for the food security of the poor.

In the light of the forthcoming review of the WTO Agreement on Agriculture (AoA), the ongoing post-Lomé negotiations, as well as the widespread concern about agricultural adjustment and the role of agribusiness TNCs we wish to bring the experiences of the majority of our communities, as documented in case studies to the focus of policy-makers, at all levels.

Principles

We recognise food security as the physical and economic access to adequate safe and healthy food by all people at all times in dignity. Key factors in realising food security are the issues of who produces food, where it is produced, what food is produced, how it is produced, as well as who controls trade and key productive resources, such as land, water, and biodiversity. Food Sovereignty to our countries and communities means having the democratic right and power to determine the production, distribution and consumption of food, according to our preferences and cultural traditions. Food security implies securing the livelihood of food producing communities.

The 1996 World Food Summit adopted the target of reducing by half the number of under-nourished people by the year 2015. This is not morally acceptable to us. World leaders must take responsibility for all the malnourished and hungry people. The policies of trade liberalisation and structural adjustment make it impossible to achieve even this unacceptably modest target: It undermines a number of the necessary measures through reduction of health and education expenses, lack of investment in small scale agriculture, by opening markets to unfair competition from subsidised production from the North, and by commodifying land, food, water and seeds.

Reform in trade policies will not be sufficient to achieve food for all. National governments must ensure that every family has access to its minimum food requirements. and secure equitable distribution of productive assets, income generating opportunities and household incomes.

Furthermore, sustainable/ecological agricultural systems and small scale farming must be promoted as the foundation for food security, as recommended in Agenda 21 adopted at the 1992 Earth Summit. All these can be attained only when full and equal participation of women is guaranteed.

Structural Adjustment

Food Security for the poor is undermined by structural adjustment policies. The policy of accepting short term pain for promises of long term benefit is not acceptable. Economic growth will not reduce the number of the poor unless it includes measures of economic redistribution. The purpose of adjustment should be to optimise local resources and develop national and regional economies rather than integration into the global economy. When agricultural exports get higher priority than local food production, women risk losing control over food supplies and the ability to provide for families and communities.

The promotion of private ownership to land, the commodification of water, seeds and genetic resources paves the way for TNCs to take over control of vital national resources.

High levels of indebtedness and the servicing of unfair debt force these poor developing countries to reduce basic health and education services and agricultural support systems. The debt burden endangers food and nutrition security especially for women and children.

Recommendations and demands on structural adjustment

1. IMF and the World Bank should abolish conditionalities demanding governments to liberalise agricultural and other imports, and allow protection of food security and the domestic economy.
2. International Financial Institutions and national governments should develop structural reforms tailored to the need of each individual country, including redistributive measures aimed at eradicating poverty and improving food security. Safety nets for the most vulnerable should be in place from the beginning of the reform process.
3. National governments must ensure peoples participation by involving the civil society in the planning and implementation policies at all levels affecting food security.
4. National governments, and the donor community should develop policies and support in favour of the small scale farming sector, including access to land, credit and other productive resources, especially for women producers. Trade reforms should take account of the important role of the informal sector in job creation and economic growth.
5. Heads of states of the G8 countries and other developed countries should cancel the unpayable debts to the poor developing countries as demanded by the global Jubilee 2000 campaign.
6. Recognising the role that women have in food security, national governments should develop programmes that reinforce the civil rights of women.

Trade Liberalisation

The countries of the South face double standards when Northern countries advocate open economies while maintaining high protection and subsidies for their own agricultural and food sectors. The WTO Agreement on Agriculture is extremely imbalanced and unfair because it applies similar rules countries which different agricultural structures:

• It prevents developing countries the use of the support measures which enabled the EU and US to develop their agricultural strength
• It obliges poor developing countries to provide market access irrespective of their own vulnerable agricultural systems, while allowing the developed countries to protect their markets and provide producer subsidies.
• It allows only agricultural support measures which are out of reach of most developing countries
• Its measures of special and differential treatment for developing countries are insufficient in providing for the particular needs of their agricultural sector and their problems with food insecurity.
• Its measures for compensation to net food importing developing countries have never been implemented.

Trade liberalisation is displaying a bias against small producers and for larger producers and export crop production. Agribusiness transnational corporations have reaped the gains from trade liberalisation, and have become even more powerful. Trade liberalisation has thus been accompanied by growing land alienation, declining food entitlements, a growing number of hungry people, and reduction of biodiversity

Recommendations and demands on trade liberalisation:

1. We demand that the member states of WTO freeze further negotiations for at least two years in order to conduct a comprehensive impact assessment of the AoA, as required by Article 20, and the TRIPs. During this period, developing countries should have the right to support their food production regardless of the limitations in the AoA.
2. WTO and other actors must undertake a systematic review of the agreement with a view to removing its imbalances and unfair provisions, by providing better market access, incorporating non-trade concerns, in particular food security, and introducing clear mechanisms for implementation of the Marrakesh decision for net food importing developing countries, such as an automatic trigger mechanism.
3. WTO and FAO, in partnership with the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, should convene a high level meeting attended by governments and civil society and intergovernmental organisations to discuss and debate the impact assessment of the AoA. The high level meeting should be preceded by a series of national debates involving government and civil society.
4. In the TRIPs agreement of the WTO member countries should have the right to exclude living organisms such as plants and animals from patenting. Least developed countries must be exempted from the whole TRIPS agreement.
5. In the meantime, National Governments and civil society must take concrete measures in order to combat and erase the negative effects of the agreement on developing countries, stabilize their agricultural production and provide market access for their products. The capacity of developing countries to participate in trade negotiations must be strengthened.
6. The review of the AoA shall include provisions to prevent monopolies, and to monitor the role of TNCs. Regional and plurilateral trade agreements should be reviewed with the same objective as the review of the WTO AoA.
7. WTO should not prevent non-reciprocal trade agreements, where development needs are clearly demonstrated, such as the Lomé-agreement, providing the ACP countries with access to EU-markets without receiving a similar market access.

Global reform

The process of economic and trade globalisation calls for an active international civil society as a counterbalance to the power of transnational corporations. Globalisation is the result of deliberate political decisions and should be controlled by governments accountable to people and not to corporate interests, and directed in favour of sustainable development. A radical change in the process of globalisation will require a major reform in the international financial architecture and in trade agreements in order to achieve a fairer balance of power between the rich and poor nations.

Civil society follow up

We call on everyone to join us in working for a Peoples' Summit on the issues of food security, food safety, food sovereignty and sustainable agriculture towards the convocation of a Global Convention on Food.

We commit ourselves to strive relentlessly, through advocacy, empowerment and networking to achieve sustainable agricultural development, economic justice for the poor and food security for all. 22 April 1999

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