World Investment Report 2009: Transnational Corporations - Unctad

166 World Investment Report 2009: Transnational Corporations, Agricultural Production and Development
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behalf of Nicaraguan banana workers with respect to the
use of the same pesticide were thrown out by the judge
because of fraud (Katherine Glover, “Fraud helps Dole
in Nicaragua banana pesticide case”, 13 May 2009, http://
industry.bnet.com).
For example, Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda in Africa,
Colombia and Ecuador in Latin America, and India and
Viet Nam in Asia.
56 About 80% of the total income of the horticulture industry
in the country is attributed to the 10 leading companies,
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See: “Kenya: country’s wealth in foreign hands”, African
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Path, 30 May 2007.
“How Kenya is caught on the thorns of Britain’s love
affair with the rose”, The Guardian, 13 February 2006.
58 Both the herbicide glyphosate, and the glyphosate-resistant
GM variety of soya are sold by Monsanto (United States),
under the names “Roundup” and Roundup Ready”,
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respectively.
See, for instance Howard and Dangl, “The multinational
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campesinos” (http://inthesetimes.com).
In June 2008, the agreement was extended for another
year.
See the Round Table on Responsible Soy Association
website, at: www.responsiblesoy.org.
62 As stated by Berg et al. (2006: viii), “…for value
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embedded in direct measures to make resource-poor
producers ‘linkable’ to markets. Without developing
necessary physical and institutional infrastructure and
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human capacities at the micro level, value chain support
activities at the meso and macro levels are likely not only
to by-pass the poor, but to widen the gap between poor
and non-poor.”
This can be done by women and the community itself,
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2008e); by the State, as in the case of government
programmes in Indonesia and the Philippines (World
Bank, FAO and IFAD, 2009b); or by TNCs, such as
through the partnership between the United Nations
Development Programme (UNDP), Nestlé Pakistan and
Engro Food (Nestlé, 2008). In the last case, through a
partnership between UNDP, Nestlé Pakistan and Engro
Food, 4000 women were trained in Pakistan to act as
farm consultants, dispensing technical advice about milk
production to 85,000 farmers (Nestlé, 2008).
64 Or indeed domestic companies, because whether this
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be no local companies capable of undertaking the relevant
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activities).
For example, for visiting family and friends, attending
school, accessing medical facilities, or going to work.
66 Closely linked to this issue are water rights, which are
not treated separately here (see, for instance, UNESCO,
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2009)
This situation can be worsened, for example by price
rises resulting from demand for alternative uses for food
crops, as in some cases of recent diversion to biofuel use,
although such a situation is unlikely to persist (FAO,
2008c; von Grebmer et al., 2008).
68 At least in the short run. TNCs will normally have access
to the hard currency needed to pay for imports.