ISGN > Publications > WTO and TRADE
An Impact Study of Agricultural Trade
Liberalization in the Philippines
by Natividad Yabut-Bernardino
Natividad Yabut-Bernardino is with the Manila-based
international secretariat of the International South Group Network (ISGN). She also works
as a senior research fellow of the Resource Center for People's Development (RCPD).
ABSTRACT
WTO negotiations on the Agreement on Agriculture are currently underway. Most South
governments and NGO lobby groups are batting for improvements in the agreement in terms of
increasing market access for third world exports, reducing subsidies in the North, and
ensuring more transparent processes and mechanisms inside the WTO.
While pushing for these reforms in the WTO Agriculture Agreement may be a valid advocacy,
there is a need to re-examine if such reforms indeed translate into improved conditions
for peasants and small agricultural producers in the third world, at the least. Or at
most, alter the inherent structural imbalance in global agricultural trade.
The present global capitalist system thrives under uneven levels of development between
the advance industrial countries of the North and the mainly backward agrarian economies
of the South. The WTO and the whole "neo-liberal" economic orthodoxy, far from
creating a "level playing field", in reality reinforce such inequality.
A study of the impact of agricultural trade liberalization in the Philippines shows a
glaring example of how peasants and small agricultural producers are put on the losing
end. Reforms that do not depart from the "neo-liberal" framework of the WTO and
the agriculture agreement are useless and may only benefit the local elite, thereby
exacerbating internal inequities inside countries of the South.
For reforms to be meaningful, countries must necessarily assert their sovereign right to
protect and develop their agriculture against the monopolies of the North. Equity measures
such as land reform must be pursued to ensure that peasants benefit from any gain in
national economic development.
Chapter I - Historical and Structural Imbalances in World Agricultural Trade
Chapter III - Impact on Social Classes and the Role of the State
To order this publication, please e-mail
the secretariat at isgn@tri-isys.com and naty@info.com.ph
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