The Doha round is dead, A new era for other world food policies out of the WTO
European Coordination Via Campesina
The colapse of the negotiations of the WTO Doha round Doha constitutes a victory for the organizations which struggled in Seattle, Cancún, Hongkong, Geneva and at many other places against the WTO. The break down of this week of negotiations is a victory for the farmers, men and women, everywhere in the world who struggle against the liberalisation of the markets and the commodification of essential products such as food, water and seeds.
The structural crisis in the fields of food, climate, finances and energy are a direct consequence of these policies of liberalization, pushed by the WTO and the free trade agreements, which make of the free market a solution for everything without any result evaluation.
With the breakdown of the WTO, we invite the global society to mobilize against the bilateral and regional free trade agreements which often go further than the WTO agreements as regards privatization of the natural resources and the public goods.
The liberalization of agriculture which only benefits some agrofood companies causes a volatibility of the prices that has harmful effects on the most vulnerable populations.
The food and agricultural productions are much more than commodities and require local policies with supply management and the inclusion of solidarity. The access to food in quantity and quality must be at the heart of these agricultural policies.
In Europe, the liberalization of the agricultural markets provokes a reduction of the number of farmers, a concentration of the production in industrial exploitations, importations at too low prices and the reinforcement of a productivist and polluting model. The actual Common Agriculture Policy, through the dumping of excedents on the exterior markets, affects negatively the farmers of other areas of the world. Also, it does not comply with the quality, environmental and public health demands of the Europeans.
The European Commission is responsible for this CAP which prevents the farmers in family exploitations of the North and the South to do their work and to obtain a remunerative price for their work.
We demand the CAP to be reformed to support a distribution of the production on the whole territory and job creation. It should push the development of short food distribution chains, guarantee remunerative prices and support sustainable production methods.
Food sovereignty is the alternative proposed by the farmers, men and women, the agricultural workers and the consumers.
WTO out of agriculture!
Contacts :
René Louail : +33672848792
Lidia Senra : +34609845861
Brussels 1st of July 2008