All Poor Farmers Want is a Level Playing Field
The Universe
(September 14, 2003)
THIS weekend sees the conclusion of vital talks in Cancun, Mexico by the World Trade Organization on global trading practices.
The wealthy nations use economic strong-arm tactics to demand an end to import tax and tariffs “sp all can compete fairly”. But the rich countries cheat. They don’t follow the rules they impose on others. They bully and threaten poor countries with tax imports to protect their fledgling industries from cheap foreign imports.
Europe, Japan and the US having prised open their markets of the developing world, flood them with their subsidized products and close their own doors to the poor. Local products cannot compete. Factories close, hunger and unemployment grow, violence follows.
World trade is a one-way street and the wealthy walk it alone. The developing nations might walk their own road too, -- straight out of the Cancun round of talks. They claim polices set secretly by the rich nations block third-world products from reaching Western markets.
The single great advantage of Juan del a Cruz , the Filipino farmer, and those millions in Africa and Asia is that he and his family live simply and frugally. Their production costs are low yet they still can’t compete with subsidized imports.
How can it be that corn and other crops produced in Europe and North America by mechanized farmers with huge overheads and shipped around the world is two-thirds lower in price than the local product? Juan de la Cruz can grow and harvest corn a few kilometers from the market and still cannot compete. 13,000 agriculture workers and farmers in the Philippines dropped out of production in 2002 alone. It is all because of the unjust subsidies that the EU and the USA and Japan pay their farmers. Fat checks for doing nothing?
The Philippine sugar industry has practically collapsed since the EU began paying farmers huge cash bonuses to grow sugar beet. Then despite the so-called open market, they imposed a tariff of 140 per cent on sugar imports. Protectionism? Absolutely! Unfair? Totally!
In the US, the cotton growers are among the most pampered: 23,000 of them receive over $3 billion in handouts. They get a subsidy of $230 for every acre and still they complain of hardships.
In West Africa, 11 million workers could emerge from grinding poverty, hunger and disease if they could only sell their higher quality cotton in a fair market. But subsidized US farmers sell cheap and control 40 per cent of the world market. In a fair world, quality low-cost African cotton would win customers. They would be self-reliant and could end famine, wars and failed states.
To fight
world poverty and injustice, all subsidies have to be abolished. All
that Juan De la Cruz asks is a level playing field so all can live in
peace and prosperity. Cancun is unlikely to change that.
