[asia-apec 900] CONFRONTING GLOBALISATION, ASSERTING OUR RIGHT TO FOOD

[PAN Asia Pacific]

CONFRONTING GLOBALISATION, ASSERTING OUR RIGHT TO FOOD

Statement from the Forum on Land, Food Security and Agriculture 
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia,
11-12 November 1998


We, 130 representatives from 18 countries and 64 organizations met
in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia from 11-12 November 1998 at the Forum on
Land, Food Security and Sustainable Agriculture. We represent women
and men farmers, fisherfolk, women, indigenous people, peoples'
organizations, consumers' organizations, NGOs, academics and
scientists. We assert the following: Globalization, driven by
international trade mechanisms like the WTO and APEC, is destroying
local food production, food security, our culture, our livelihood,
local knowledge systems and biodiversity. This is endangering the
lives of people, destroying the environment, land, forest and
water. People are being displaced and forced to migrate. Families
and communities are disintegrated. Women and men peasant farmers,
workers and migrant workers are pushed into more exploitative
conditions of work. Women and children are the most vulnerable and
often forced into the sex trade. 


Reality


1. Land is the source of livelihood, survival, identity, food
security and culture. Throughout Asia and South America peasants
are losing access to land and globalization is intensifying this
problem. Large-scale and unscrupulous land owners and big
corporations are producing for export or taking land out of
agriculture. This is being facilitated by governments. 


2. Globalization is intensifying the practice of export-oriented
industrial shrimp aquaculture and fish farming, often with foreign
companies. This is destroying local and community structure and
causing ecological devastation. Globalization is also promoting
large scale factory fishing. Artisanal fishing communities are
being threatened by the encroachment of foreign fishing vessels in
territorial waters. 


3. The Asian economic crisis has increased the cost of food and
created shortages, and loss of jobs. People have been impoverished
and cannot afford to purchase food and other essentials. The Asian
crisis has revealed the vulnerability of dependence on imports to
meet our food needs. The response of governments has been to
further industrialize agriculture encouraging monocultures and the
high use of chemical inputs at increasing costs, endangering the
environment and human health. 


4. To protect their own interests and the interests of the elites,
governments are conceding to the dictates of the IMF especially
through the bail outs at this time of the Asian crisis. The
interest of the IMF is in protecting the investments of Northern
financial institutions. 


5. Transnational companies are driving and benefiting from
globalization. They are consolidating their interests and
increasing their control over agriculture and fisheries. They are
using government structures and international and national
development agencies to promote their aims and their products. They
are becoming more aggressive and sophisticated in promoting their
green image. They are promoting food production, rather than
access, as the solution to food security and hunger. 


6. Women are predominantly responsible for the provisions of the
food needs of their families. Despite their multiple and vital
roles as farmers, fishers, farmworkers and caretakers and managers
of their households. Women often experience discrimination in terms
of access and control over land and water resources. The Asian
crisis has intensified this gender-based discrimination and the
exploitation and violence against women, both within the family and
in the workplace. 


7. Globalization is intensifying militarization and state
repression, especially in the rural areas. 


8. Narrow, nationalistic and chauvinistic forces are reacting
against globalization leading to intensification and fundamentalism
and other forms of intolerance which are unleashing caste and
racial violence. Struggles and emerging issues 9. We denounce
globalization, and the institutions and governments which promote
liberalization, deregulation and privatization. We are part of
growing movements to resist and initiate concrete alternatives for
securing our food. Actions include taking over and occupying land,
ecological and sustainable farming and taking mass action. Grass
roots campaigns are happening at different levels. Mobilizing,
organizing, awareness building, advocacy, publicity, training,
sharing information and demonstrating are actions we are taking to
push for change. 


10. We are strengthening and building mass-based movements and
organizations to resist globalization and to struggle for rights,
such as the right to land, the right to safe and secure food,
access to natural resources, ancestral domains, knowledge and to
participation in decision making. 


11. We are already demonstrating there are sustainable alternatives.
Peoples movements have used the technology of sustainable agriculture
to build resistance and political action. 


12. We pledge solidarity with all peoples' movements struggling for
these rights. Strategy and action


13. We resist the imposition of the WTO regime and work towards its
dismantling. We demand the removal of the Agreement on Agriculture
and will work towards achieving this in 1999-2000. 


14. We call for the dismantling of APEC. 


WE DEMAND:


15. That governments develop people centred, pro-poor development
plan through participatory processes, and that they: 


- stop intrusive and exploitative trade liberalization policies that
destroy local communities;


- ensure food security and sustainable agriculture;


- promote the rights of artisanal and traditional fishing
communities; 


- protect the rights, health and well being of agricultural,
plantation and industrial workers; 


- abolish the Agreement on Agriculture, Sanitary and Phytosanitary
Standard, TRIPS from the WTO; 


- establish an international agreement to prohibit food export
dumping; 


- develop an alternative trading system that is fair, democratic
and transparent and in protective of the needs and requirements of
developing and least-develop economies, and focus on
people-to-people exchanges. 


16. Land for landless women and men peasants who work the land, with
sufficient support for sustainable rural livelihoods and economies as
a foundation for people-centred development and self reliance; and
the restitution of equivalent productive land to those who have been
dispossessed. 


17. Removal of discriminative legislation, policies, or customary
practices that deny women the right to access to resources and
sustain their livelihoods. 


18. A stop to self-destructive agriculture and fishing methods and
ending conversion of agricultural lands and coastal areas into
non-productive land. 


19. A ban on the release of genetically engineered organisms and the
importation of genetically engineered foods and seeds into our farms
and markets. 


PLAN OF ACTION 


20. Make a collective effect to publicize the negative impacts of
the Agreement on Agriculture (which includes fisheries) on food
security in different countries and on the lives of affected
people. In doing this we will link regionally and internationally. 


21. Study and promote alternative fair and equitable trade.


22. Document concrete local impacts of globalization in different
countries. This includes the impact on: 


- land and water utilization and appropriation


- food security at national, local and household levels


- survival mechanisms of the vulnerable and marginalized people


- government policies that are diluting health and environmental
safety and related issues 


- health and the environment problems (e.g. of pesticides) and
present our own evidence 


- indigenous and local agricultural practices of various forms of
intellectual property rights 


23. Launch international campaigns. Support action days,
particularly: a "Day of No Pesticide Use" on 3 December in memory
of the Bhopal tragedy; an International Day of Fisherfolk on 21
November; an International Day of Resistance to the WTO on 15
December. 


24. Undertake dialogue with communities and exchange visits to learn
from each other. 


25. Provide research and information for formal and non-formal
education, and public awareness. 


26. Make sure that our governments are aware of our demands;
demonstrate to them that alternatives can work; and fight for their
acceptance and implementation. 


27. Promote more ecological agriculture and sustainable consumption
patterns in all countries, North and South, with opportunities for
small scale production and sustainable rural livelihoods. 


28. Support and develop campaigns against transnational
corporations. Actions include research the companies, monitor their
practices, expose them and demand accountability and ethical
practices. 


29. Create alternatives to transnational power at community level.
These include: 


- Organizing at local level;


- Undertaking specific actions like monitoring health effects of
pesticides and baby food companies; developing pesticide free
villages, global seed networks, community level conservation;
protecting traditional plant breeding, seed banks and seed exchange
mechanisms; 


- Studying and publicizing successful sustainable farming
initiatives with details of yields and economic returns; 


- Promoting breast feeding as the basic food security while ensuring
women's reproductive rights. 


30. Pressure the UN to actively implement reporting mechanisms by
governments on banned and severely restricted dangerous pesticides,
pharmaceutical and chemicals, including the UN Consolidated List
and the PIC Convention. We will submit relevant data directly to
the UN. 


31. Strengthen farmer/fisher-consumer links and encourage consumers
to eat locally grown, sustainably-produced foods. 


32. Campaign for protection of local and indigenous knowledge and
genetic resources from intellectual property rights regimes, and an
immediate withdrawal of existing patents on biological and genetic
resources and indigenous knowledge. 


33. Recognize that true science and truly sustainable economics lies
with women and men farmers, fisher-folk and indigenous peoples.


34. We will use and build on existing strategies, including civil
disobedience, to resist globalization and to assert our rights. We
will support each other in the resistance against the oppression of
globalization. 


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