ISGN > Publications > WOMEN and GENDER
TRADE LIBERALISATION IN AGRICULTURE AND
FOOD SECURITY: IMPACT ON PEASANT WOMEN
Presented by Sheelu Francis, Asian Women Workshop on Globalization Manila
22-24th Nov,2001
TRADE LIBERALISATION:
Over the past decade, ever since economic liberalisation
became the development mantra, India has been on the receiving end. With the
Indian Government amending the patent act 1970 to comply with the requirements
of the trade related intellectual property rights of the WTO and agreeing to
phase out the controls on all imports from the month of April 2001 a new trade
game has begun. Flooded with cheap and highly subsidised agricultural imports,
its agrarian economy has been thrown out of gear. Whether it is the import of
palm oil, rubber, sugar, coffee, paddy or wheat almost every aspect of the
nation's socio-economy has been negatively impacted. Seven years after the WTO
came into existence, on January 1,1995, the anticipated gains for India from the
trade liberalization process in agriculture are practically zero. The Ministry
of Agriculture as well as the Ministry of Commerce has officially admitted that
the hopes from an international regime that talked of establishing a fair and
market oriented agricultural trading system have been belied.1
WTO agreement on Agriculture (AOA) has promoted an industrial model
of agriculture that has jeopardized food security in developing countries. AOA
had incorporated three broad areas of commitments from member states, namely in
market access, domestic support and export subsidies. The underlying objective
being to correct and prevent restrictions and distortions in World agricultural
markets. On the other hand, the trading regime has ensured that developing
countries take time bound initiatives to open up their domestic markets for
cheap and highly subsidised imports of agricultural commodities in the name of
encouraging competition. Seven years later, it is now established that these
measures have only protected the farmers and the farming systems of the
developing countries.
Increased market access was the hallmark of the free trade agenda. It was aimed
at force opening new markets for agriculture exporters. A recent study by the
Food and Agricultural Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), however,
concludes that There have been hardly any changes in the volume of exports.
Tariff peaks or in other words high import duties continue to block exports from
the developing countries. And on top of it only 36 countries (all developed)
have the right to impose special safeguard provisions if agriculture imports
distort their domestic markets. And these countries have used this provision 399
times till 19992.
India was forced to either phase out or eliminate the quantitative restrictions
(QRs) on agricultural commodities and products latest by April 1,2001. India has
therefore, opened its market and in turn made the farming community vulnerable
to the imports of highly subsidised products. Already cheaper imports of skimmed
milk powder, edible oils, sugar, tea, arecanut, apples, coconut etc have flooded
the market. Clever manipulation of their subsidy reduction commitments has in
reality increased the support to farmers in the developed countries. In the
United States, subsidy to mere 9,00,000 farmers has increased by 700 times since
1996. In reality India is committed to do away with agriculture subsidies under
the Structural Adjustment Programme of the World Bank and the IMF. In any case
India provides only one billion dollar worth of indirect subsidies to 550
million farmers. India has seen a massive increase in the imports of
agricultural commodities and products from about Rs.50, 000 million in 1995 to
over Rs.1, 50,000 million in 1999-2000 - a three -fold increase.
Unlike the European countries where the (PDS) Public Distribution System was
discontinued after the Second World War, its importance has grown for an
overpopulated and poverty-stricken country like India. It was with the basic
objective of curbing the consumption and ensuring an equitable distribution of
available food supplies, especially in the deficit areas and among poorer strata
of society, that the PDS was introduced more than fifty years ago. AOA allows
developing countries to use public stockholding of food grains for food security
purpose. After all if India were to acquire food grains for stockholding under
PDS, at the international prices, the budget allocations will mount beyond
manageable limits.
Internationally, powerful multinational companies are trading food. By passing
on the reins of the nation's food security to these companies and the trading
blocks through a policing system under the WTO, India is witnessing a gradual
collapse of food self-sufficiency and the scrapping of the PDS, the very
foundations of Food security. It is very clear that the new trade regime in
agriculture only aims at eliminating the hungry and not the hunger, the small
and marginal farmers and not unsustainable agriculture.
FOOD SECURITY:
Food security means different things to different people. The
food economy however is currently in an era of trade liberalization and pursuit
of global markets. Trade policy and food security are fundamentally matters of
justice and human rights. It is assumed that free trade will increase food
security, but this assumption should be questioned. The goal of food security is
in danger of being rendered meaningless by the economic forces of globalisation
and by the belief that all human needs are best met by market mechanisms.
The committee on World Food Security of the United Nation's Food and Agriculture
Organisation (FAO) defines food security thus " Food security means that
food is available at all times, that all persons have means of access to it,
that it is nutritionally adequate in terms of quantity, quality and variety and
that is acceptable within the given culture. Only when all these conditions are
in place can a population be considered 'food secure'. We aim to achieve lasting
self-reliance at the national and household levels. In order to succeed, our
initiatives must be founded on principles of economic viability, equity, broad
participation, and the sustainable use of natural resources"3
. The World Bank defines food security as "access by all people at all
times to enough food for an active and healthy life"4
.
As it is well known the extent of unmet need in the world is considerable. Food
production has kept up with population growth, but has not been equitably
distributed either within households, within countries and between countries.
The United Nation's Children's Fund estimates that one in five persons in the
developing world suffers from chronic hunger - 800 million people in Africa,
Asia and Latin America and that over 2 billion people subsist on diets deficient
in the vitamins and minerals essential for normal growth and development and for
preventing premature death and such disabilities as blindness and mental
retardation5.
IMPACT ON PEASANT WOMEN:
It is difficult to overstate the importance of women in
developing country agriculture. Women account for 60% of work in agriculture and
food production. There is also an increasing trend towards feminisation of
agriculture owing to conflicts and rural - urban migration. In a country such as
India, the rural population numbers some 500 million people - nearly double the
entire population of the US. The global food chain is increasingly distorted by
the disparities in power between global agribusinesses on the one hand and
farmers and consumers on the other. The virtual removal of Quantitative
Restrictions, the phenomenon of declining agricultural commodity prices in India
since 1999-2000 had lead to a spate of farmers' suicides in Punjab, Rajasthan,
Karnataka and Andrapradesh.
Coconut prices have crashed down from Rs.10 to Rs.2 putting the coconut farmers
livelihood at stake. Rubber has plummeted from Rs.60 to Rs.16 and Coffee from
Rs.58 in 1999 to Rs.30 per kg in 2001. Even spices have not been spared, with
pepper prices falling from Rs.2600 to Rs.1300 per quintal in the consecutive
period. The small tea growers association is demanding for a better price for
their green tea, whereas Government is importing green tea. The sugarcane
farmers are still waiting for sugarcane cutting order from sugar factories which
already has full stocks in their go downs as the imported sugar from Pakistan
costs much cheaper in the market. The bananas, tomatoes, garlic and other
imported vegetables decorate the supermarket shelves.
Commersalisation of agriculture has systematically displaced the small and
marginal farmers from food crop production. Mechanisation has displaced the
landless agricultural labourers. The planners focus on green revolution, heavily
subsidising wet land cultivation has further added to the destruction of dry
land cultivation which actually produces the cereals for common people's
consumption. Vast stretch of land is left fallow. The farmers are also facing a
situation where the cost of the agriculture inputs is much higher that the
actual returns they get from their production.
The Corporatisation of the land has also lead to the disappearance of common
property resources and the deterioration of environment balance, which are the
main source of water, fuel, fodder and herbal needs of the peasant families.
This impinges upon the rights and food security of the millions of people
particularly women and Children. Majority of the small and marginal farmers
(peasants) are selling their piece of land to corporate or MNC at throw away
prices and are migrating to the cities in search of employment. In the last
three years as many as 534 farmer's suicides are reported.
The agricultural labourers who depend on these small and marginal farmers are
rendered jobless. The off-season employment at match industry, beedi industry
and textile industry is also affected because of the import policy. Feminisation
of Poverty and increase in violence is the net result of the trade
liberalization policy.###
Sheelu Francis, Tamilnadu Women's Collective
"Sangamam" 53-E, 15th street, 2nd cross
Periyar Nagar, Chennai -600 082.
Tamilnadu, South India.
Phone: 91 44 550 5853 / 1257/ 2881 (O)
91 44 550 5851 (R)
Email: womencollective@rediffmail.com
/ sheelu1@vsnl.com
_____________
1
Devinder Sharma :GATT to WTO: Seeds of Despair and In the Famine Trap.
2 Devinder Sharma :GATT to WTO: Seeds of Despair and In the Famine Trap.
3
Committee on World Food Security 1996 21st session.
4 World Bank (1986) Poverty and Hunger
–Issues and options for food security in developing countries.
5
UNICEF (1996) Food Health and Care, the UNICEF Vision and
strategies for a World free from Hunger and Malnutrition.