Agroecology and the Struggle for Food Sovereignty ... - Yale University

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agroecology and the struggle for food sovereignty
1 For more information, see
Bloque Popular
Centroamericano, Alliance for
Responsible Trade and
Heispheric Social Alliance
(2004), “Why We Say No to
CAFTA,” available at www.artus.org/docs/cafta304.pdf
The panelists also discussed the need for policy change within nations. Sinclair
argued for the reform of subsidy policies that currently promote industrial agriculture,
in order to make subsidies serve the needs of small farmers and also serve environmental
aims. Dawkins called for support for farmers’ rights to land, water, seeds,
and self-determination as critical foundations of food sovereignty. Flores argued that
food sovereignty must become the focus of policy on all levels – international,
national, and rural. In the case of his own country, he argued for land reform to prohibit
communally held ejido lands, created by Article 27 of the Mexican constitution,
from being privatized and sold to corporations, a process that began under NAFTA.
He also called for respect for the rights of Mexico’s 12 million indigenous people, and
for laws to conserve soil and prohibit the privatization of water resources.
Silvia Rodríguez.
Photographer: Steve Taylor.
“[Under US-CAFTA] we can see
that the seed industry is the
one that is going to gain, and
not the seed industry in our
countries, but the transnational
corporations; that intellectual
property rights will bring only
an exclusive monopoly to the
plant breeders or the
enterprises that can pay for the
investigation… Current world
seed sales of $30 billion a year
should jump to $90 billion
soon, especially if farmers are
obliged by law to stop
producing their own seed. This
has been an ancient right of
farmers, which is now turned
illegal.”
– Silvia Rodríguez
New Free Trade Agendas: The Case of CAFTA
Silvia Rodríguez, President of the Board for Genetic Resources Action International
and member of the Coordinating Network on Biodiversity in San José, Costa Rica,
presented a call for opposition to one of the newest trade developments, the United
States-Central America Free Trade Agreement (US-CAFTA). 1 In 2003, trade ministers
from the U.S. and Central American countries from Guatemala to Costa Rica, plus
the Dominican Republic, negotiated a regional free trade agreement which is now
awaiting ratification in the legislative chambers of the various countries. The
legislators can approve or disapprove the agreement, but “not amend a single
comma,” Rodríguez said, charging that its negotiation by executive-branch ministers
circumvented the normal democratic law-making process. US-CAFTA’s status as a
“treaty” would put it on a level above all other laws in the Central American
countries, superseded only by the national constitutions.
Rodríguez explained how US-CAFTA will threaten Central American food
sovereignty in two ways: US-CAFTA will not only increase dumping of subsidized
U.S. agricultural products onto Central American markets, but will also restrict
farmers’ rights through its intellectual property provisions pertaining to seeds. Under
US-CAFTA, countries would have to abide by the Convention of the Union for the
Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV 91), a protocol which requires
participating countries to grant patents on plants, giving the patent holder exclusive
intellectual property rights over the seed patented.
UPOV 91 would go even further than the WTO’s Trade-Related Aspects of
Intellectual Property requirements for intellectual property rights to plants, and if
CAFTA took effect, even WTO negotiations could not overturn UPOV in Central
America. Under UPOV 91, farmers could save seed for their own use, but would be
prohibited from improving, selling, or producing seeds without permission. As a
result, Rodríguez said, “farmers will lose the control of one of the most important
means of production: the seed, and at least for Costa Rica and for Central America,
you’ll see that food sovereignty will become a myth.”
yale school of forestry & environmental studies