impact of food crisis in asia (cw)

8/14/2019 Impact of Food Crisis in Asia (CW)

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The Food Crisisin Asia: ThePeoples Strugglefor Food Sovereignty

Clare Westwood

Pesticide Action Network Asia and Pacific

& The Peoples Coalition on Food Sovereignty


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The Food Crisis in Asia Impacts

Causes

Solutions / Alternatives for the Future Food Sovereignty


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Impacts of the Food Crisis

2008

The Rice Crisis

Rice is the life of Asia: We cant survivewithout rice

Price of rice shot up by 34% in Feb 2008

In May 2008, it went up to USD 980 per tonnecompared to USD 460 in March 2008

August 2008 average was 80% higher thanthe prices in January and 138% higher thanthe USD 335 per tonne the year before


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The food crisis of 2008.

29 countries including 14 rice producerssuch as China, India, & Vietnamimplemented export taxes, export quotas,

export bans or minimum export prices inorder to protect their local markets andensure their own supplies

Set off panic buying eg by the Philippinesand Indonesia


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The Food Crisis of 2008.

The rice crisis led the inflation of otherfood items. Prices of meat, vegetables,fruits, dairy products, cooking oil rose

sharply. Also petrol.

Wheat prices rose by 130%

Riots and protests in almost 40 countries Loss of livelihoods and lives


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People lining up

to buy cheap

rice in thePhilippines


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Protests against food and petrol price

hikes - Jakarta, April 2008


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The Food Crisiswas a Catastrophe

waiting to happen.

This collapse of our food

production system was of a

systemic & structural nature


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THE CAUSES?

Insufficient supply due to doubling ofdemand for rice???NO.

Rice production has been increasing by 2.2% andconsumption by 1.8% every year since 2003

Farmers across the world produced 2.3 billion tons ofgrain in 2007, up 4 percent on the previous year.

Since 1961, cereal production has tripled while thepopulation has only doubled


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Not a problem of supply.Looking at actual consumption in 2007:

- The consumption of rice was a little belowproduction

- The consumption of meat and oilseedsremained well below production levels, and

- The consumption of dairy products remainedstable against increasing production.Only for wheat, corn and other coarse grains

did consumption outpace production, although

a similar thing happened in 2004 and otheryears. Stocks were low but there was enoughproduced in the world to feed the population

Source: Making a killing from hunger, GRAIN, 2008


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Other Claims. A narrowing global rice market YET

ONLY 6% OF THE RICE PRODUCEDIS TRADED

The rising cost of oil and consequentlyfarm inputs, & climate change

ALTHOUGH THESE MAY HAVECONTRIBUTED TO THE PROBLEM,THEY ARE NOT THE UNDERLYINGCAUSES


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THE REAL CAUSES

Neo-liberalist Globalization& Monopoly Capitalism

Market Speculation


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The Globalization Process

The first wave was the colonialism period withcontrol over land and governance. In manycountries the land conversion saw theemergence of corporate agriculture with thedevelopment ofplantations.

Use of immigrant labour classic examples areSri Lanka with tea plantations and Malaysia withrubber plantations.

Use ofwomen as permanent reserve labour force as weeders, pickers, cheap labour. Capitalistand patriarchal value of female labour.


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Second phase: Post Second World War/Independence The Development Era

Development of the Green Revolution in the 1960s:corporate agriculture takes root in farms with theintroduction of machines andhazardous technologies

Displacement of labour; high internalmigration with high unemployment

Increase in women pesticide sprayersand women agriculture workers

exposed to pesticides, low wagesand heavy work.

Development of contractual/ informallabour sector

SAPs


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The Green Revolution Narrow range of high yielding (input) varieties. In rice,

IRRI played a key role. Dependency package of seeds, pesticides & fertilizers

Monocultures

Large scale irrigation and mechanization

Destruction of centuries-old local food production systems and

knowledge HYVs more susceptible to pests and disease

In Asian countries, average productivity growth rates for 1977-86and 1987-97 dropped from 3.35 percent to 1.5 percent for rice, from6.21 percent to 2.96 percent for wheat, and from 4.04 percent to

3.34 percent for corn. There has been further decline since (Kaosa-ardet al. 1999)


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Pesticide Poisonings In the South,

an estimated25 million

agriculturalworkers arepoisoned bypesticides

each year


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SAPs. In the1980s, the Structural Adjustments

Programmes of the World Bank/InternationalMonetary Fund and other InternationalFinancial Institutions intensified theglobalization process through liberalization

and lowered government spending on publicservices, namely in health, agriculture andeducation. In agriculture, the new policiesessentially meant giving up self-sufficiency in food and a shift in priorityfrom growing food crops to cash crops forexports.


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Third Phase: Globalization &Trade Liberalization

Formation of the WTO. Passing of the AoA.

IPRs TRIPs, TRIPs Plus

A trade-based kind of food security

Neo-liberal restructuring as conditionality oflending

Trade and investment liberalization in foodand agriculture

Privatization and deregulation Food Dumping


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Neo-liberalist Capitalism.

Massive Land Conversion, LandGrabbing for SEZs, AGROFUELS,cash crops, etc. over food crops

Landlessness, Mass Displacement,Migration, Social Injustice


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GLOBALISATION

Crucial to recognize that globalization isCrucial to recognize that globalization isNOT incidental. It is designed at every stageNOT incidental. It is designed at every stage

forforcontrol, power and dominance.control, power and dominance.

It embodiesIt embodies an absolute lack of concernan absolute lack of concern forfor

the human person,the human person, for human rightsfor human rights,,for the food and national sovereignty offor the food and national sovereignty of

Third World countries.Third World countries.

The overriding aim is profitThe overriding aim is profitby transnationalby transnationalcorporations (TNCs) and developedcorporations (TNCs) and developed

nations.nations.


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MARKET SPECULATION

Globalization has financialized and commodified rice

According to the Globe and Mail, a Toronto-basedpublication, the amount of speculative money in futures likerice ballooned from US$5 billion in 2000 toUS$175 billion to 2007.

These speculative funds have had substantial clout in the

market, all because the rice market is narrow, riceproduction is in crisis, and globalization of rice has beenrelentless

Investment funds now control up to 60% of the wheattraded on the worlds biggest commodity markets.


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IAASTD 20081.9 bil ha (2.6 bil ppl) areaffected by land degradation

Abuse of fertilizers largedead zones

Abuse of pesticides groundwater pollution and lossof biodiversity

70% of freshwater is withdrawn globally due to irrigationsalinization


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91% of the worlds 1.5 bil ha of agri. land agro-export crops, agrofuels, and GE

soya (IAASTD 2008) Emphasis on increasing yields and productivity

has had negative consequences onenvironmental sustainability (IAASTD 2008)

Loss of 00,000s of our traditional crop varieties(replaced by HYVs, hybrids, GE varieties)

Ecological balance destroyed


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70% of developingcountries are now

net food importers150,000 farmer suicidesin India (1997-2005).

In Thailand, theproportion of farminghousehold debt rosefrom 46% in 1993 to 70%in 2002.

In the Philippines, 50% ofrural families live belowthe poverty line.


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CORPORATE CONTROL OFAGRICULTURE The top three seed

companies, Monsanto,Dupont and Syngenta,

control nearly 40% of theseed market, and 6corporations control75-80% of the globalpesticide market.


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MAKING A KILLING! $$$! CARGILL: 36% profit growth (US$ 2.3 billion) in

2007

MONSANTO: US$1 billion profit in 2007(44% > 2006). Pushing GE seeds.

SYNGENTA: 75% higher profit (US$1.1 billion) in2007. Pushing GE seeds.

ARCHER DANIEL MIDLANDS (ADM) of the US,profits up by 67% to US$ 2.2 billion in 2007.

Food processors and the world's large retailtraders, such as Walmart (US), Tesco (UK) andCarrefour (France) are the other beneficiaries.


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Monopoly control of the

agri-food chain by TNCs


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AGRICULTURE AGRIBIZCORPORATIONS & IRRIARE CALLING FOR ASECOND GREEN REVOLUTIONMore of the Same Formula

and now we haveCLIMATE CHANGEand the South has to pay again fora problem that originated inthe North


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THE

PEOPLESRESPONSE


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ASSERTION &RESISTANCERECLAIMING OURRIGHTS TO:

To Food Sovereignty

To National Sovereignty

To Gender Justice

To Environmental Justice

To Social Justice

To Climate Justice

To Democracy

To Self-Determination

To Genuine Agarian &Fisheries Reform

To Our Rice Heritage

RESISTING:

Control and Dominance ofTNCsCorporate AgricultureContract farmingLand Grabbing

WTO and globalizationFeudalismPatriarchyAll forms of

Discrimination

Militarisationand State Violence


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FOOD SOVEREIGNTY The rights of people and communities to

decide on food & agricultural policies;to adequate, culturally

appropriate and safe food;

to land & productiveresources; to sustainableproduction & livelihoods;

to gender justice; social

justice; & environmental justice


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FOOD SOVEREIGNTY The call for food sovereignty has resulted

from mass struggles against the brutalimpacts of liberalization and

the corporatization of agriculture.

It is the freedom and the power of the peopleto fight the power of the forces that

destroy peoples foodproduction systems

through trade,investment & other

polices


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BIODIVERSITY-BASEDECOLOGICALAGRICULTURE

Total Productivityof a BEA farm >just yield. Sustainsfarming families&communities in alltheir basic needs.


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BEA FARMING. 500 mil small farms help

feed the world Sustainable Livelihoods

Small BEA farmsmore are productive

& resource conservingthan large monocultures.

While the smaller

farms produced average yields worthUS$15,100 per hectare, the larger farmsaveraged only US$ 249 per hectare (Alterieri2008)


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IAASTD REPORT A growing consensus among scientists

and many governments is that the oldparadigm of industrial energy-intensive

and toxic agriculture is an outdatedconcept, while small-scale farmersand agro-ecological methods

provide the way forward.


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PEASANTS COALITION (APC): AsianRice Crisis, due to ImperialistGlobalization Development policies in Asia should be

based on democratic principles aimed at

reducing inequality and ensuring peoples'

access to productive resources and

employment opportunities so as to enable

them to enjoy an adequate standard of living.

However, these aims can only be achieved if

a qualitative change can occur in the existing

socio-political and economic structure at the

national, regional and global levels.


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RADICALTRANSFORMATIONFood Sovereignty of Small Farmers

There is no other credible way forwardthan to rebuild from the bottom up. Thatmeans inverting the power structure:

small farmers, still responsible for mostfood produced, should be the onessetting agricultural policy, rather than

the WTO, the IMF, the World Bank orgovernments. (GRAIN 2008)


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PEOPLE POWER!!!

ORGANIZE! ORGANIZE!

ORGANIZE

MOBILIZE! MOBILIZE!

MOBILIZE!

across all sectors including the urbanpoor to assert their right to food and

livelihood, and food sovereignty

Th P l C 2004


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The Peoples Caravan 2004

S i th Ri f A i


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Saving the Rice of Asia


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W ld F dl D O t 16th


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World Foodless Day: Oct 16th


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Promote the rights,

empowerment and

liberation of Women

L d t th L dl !


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Land to the Landless!


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CLIMATE JUSTICE!


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CLIMATE JUSTICE!

No to Globalization!

Those whohave the bearthe brunt ofthe climatecrisis are theones leastresponsible

for it andleast able

to cope withit


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WTO Out of AgricultureLand to the Landless!Safe Food for All!Gender Justice!

Climate Justice!LONG LIVEINTERNATIONAL

impact of food crisis in asia (cw)

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