| OAKLAND,
CA - September 16 - While the United States calls for "trade not aid"
and elimination of subsidies and tariffs, the 2002 U.S. Farm Bill, with an 80
percent boost in spending over the 1996 bill, is an example of its policy of "do
as we say, not as we do," according to a new report by Food First/Institute
for Food and Development Policy.
The report, Giving Away the Farm: The 2002 Farm Bill, details the bill's impact
on small family farmers, trade, and agricultural sustainability. With $190 billion
in new money over the next 10 years, this bill targets two-thirds of its money
to the largest U.S. agribusiness farms that grow export crops such as cotton,
rice, soybeans, and wheat. Though American taxpayers foot the bill, the real cost
will be borne by family farmers around the world. "In 2001, the White House made a solemn promise to Africa: 'a new partnership
to alleviate poverty.' However, the new partnership has turned out to be with
American agribusiness, whose 'poverty' is being addressed with some serious corporate
welfare," said Anuradha Mittal, co-director of Food First and author of the
report. "The farm bill bankrolls the nation's largest farmers, helping them
grow surplus crops to dump on the world market. The new farm bill pulls a reverse
Robin Hood: robbing the world's poor to enrich American industrial agriculture." The U.S. agricultural system has been designed to give American grain-trading
giants like Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) and Cargill an edge in capturing the
domestic markets of developing countries. With help from institutions such as
the World Trade Organization (WTO), Third World countries are forced to open their
markets to American agricultural exports. Now with a farm bill designed to depress
farm prices to below the cost of production, they can out-compete local farmers
at the marketplace. According to the report, this U.S. pursuit of foreign markets for its agricultural
products, has resulted in dumping of subsidized imports on Third World countries,
collapsing local agricultural markets and destroying the livelihoods of family
farmers, while exacerbating hunger and food insecurity. "The world's richest countries do pay about $50 billion per year in aid
to the world's poorest nations," said Mittal. "Mark Malloch Brown, the
head of the United Nations Development Program, points out that U.S. farm subsidies
cost those same poor countries about $50 billion a year in lost agricultural exports.
$50 billion in, and $50 billion out. Maybe that's what the White House means by
'trade, not aid'." While the farm bill is a bonanza for large producers of commodity crops in
the United States, "this new bill gives away the family farm. The federal
crop subsidies will not go to farmers who resemble John Steinbeck's Joad family,
but to rich recipients," said Mittal. The 2002 farm bill further subsidizes well-heeled agribusiness interests which
ensures the continued exodus of independent family farmers from the land. In 1930,
25 percent of the population lived on six million family farms. Today the two
million farms that remain are home to two percent of the population, with 8 percent
of farms accounting for 72 percent of sales. The report calls for demolishing the hypocritical 'development agenda' myth
of free trade, renews Via Campesina's call to get the World Trade Organization
out of agriculture, and demands that governments uphold the rights of all people
to food sovereignty. It insists that trade policies from Washington are based
on sound policy and reason, not on the supposed necessity of maintaining political
and market dominance. To read the report, please visit:
HTML - http://www.foodfirst.org/pubs/backgrdrs/2002/s02v8n3.html
PDF - http://www.foodfirst.org/pubs/backgrdrs/2002/s02v8n3.pdf
For more information or to set up an interview Anuradha Mittal, please call
Nick Parker at (510) 654-4400, ext. 229. ### |
