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"The land is not inherited from our ancestors, it is borrowed from our children." Nettie Wiebe, National Farmers Union, Canada
In Seattle the First Methodist Church was filled to the rafters with people who had come to hear speakers from all parts of the world discuss various aspects of the threat posed by the WTO to agriculture in individual nations. Time and time again, speakers were interrupted by wild cheering, fist pumping, and foot stomping. The atmosphere was absolutely electrified. And the issue was food!
A speaker from the Philippine Peasant Movement (KMP) pointed out that as soon as the meager farm subsidies in the Philippines were withdrawn to come within WTO compliance, local farmers were crushed by the sudden influx of cheap rice and corn. "What we want is food self-sufficiency, not dependency," he said. There are now seven landless peasants for every farmer in the Philippines.
American farmer Denise O'Brien, from Iowa and the Women, Food, and Agriculture Network, USA said she was proud to be part of the 60% of the women who feed the world. "In Iowa," she said, " we are number one in hogs, in soy beans, and in corn. We are also the least biodiverse state in the nation. After the monoculture of soybeans and corn, there is little natural habitat left. We are looking at dairies with 3,000 milking cows, poultry factories with 7 million chickens under one roof. Iowa today imports 90% of its food. This is the miracle of American agriculture, and yet we are going through our second farm crisis in 15 years. We are looking at rapidly changing agriculture in this country where soon enough the American farmer will be nothing more than a landless tractor driver working for a corporation."
Anuradha Mittal of FoodFirst, rattled off a blistering list. That four corporations own 84% of commercial seed. That in India, for the first time since partition, agricultural land is open for sale. "Millions are displaced each year and move to the cities because they can't compete with cheap corn and soybeans," she said. "WTO is always saying how much good it is doing. But believe me, these people are saying, 'Don't do us any good! Leave us the way we are!" She pointed out that 95% of US food is corporate grown. She focused on the plight of black farmers in America. They are all but extinct, victims of USDA discrimination recently documented by the USDA itself. "First they took away their land," Mittal said, "and gave them food stamps. Then they took away the food stamps and called it Welfare Reform."
Nettie Wiebe of the National Farmers Union, Canada spoke for Canadian farmers: "We in Canada have been sanguine. We are the winners, and we are cosy with the US. We wanted access to world markets, and we got it. We doubled our exports of agricultural products. However, in the same time we work harder and longer to produce more food to send farther away than ever before, and we earn less. We are the model you all should emulate, and we are dying. It is killing us. Saskatchewan is collapsing beneath a farm crisis.
"As farmers, we plant wind rows to protect our land and ourselves. WTO agricultural policy bulldozes those windrows. This isn't just erosion of democratic farm policy, but erosion of culture, of people, of soil. They speak of leveling the big playing field for one and all. But it's not about the size of the field. It's the size of the players on the field that's the problem."
José Bové a sheep farmer and powerful voice in the European Farmers Union was greeted with a standing ovation. "As farmers," he said in remarkable English, "we must struggle together so each country can have its own food and its own agriculture. How can we accept that the poor are getting poorer in the poor countries? How can the three most rich people have more money than the poorest 600 million? We have to fight where we live against agricultural policies that help coporations and kill little farmers. As farmers in the north we must support farmers in southern countries. The fight begins with the battle against GMOs. This is the main issue for the new year. In Europe we destroy GMO seeds. We cut down GMO corn in the fields. We destroy GMO rice plants in the green house. But listen to me: It's very important that these actions must be done by farmers to show that it is farmers who are against GMOs. As farmers, we must be on the front lines of demonstrations."
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