WTO: A victory for farmers but struggle continues

Secretary, Department of Agriculture

We did not conquer the World Trade Organization in a day.

In pursuance of the three-pronged presidential mandate that I have been given since I assumed office as secretary of agriculture, namely sufficient and affordable food supply, increased production, and more countryside income and livelihood, integrated under the theme Sigla at Yaman sa Kanayunan, I went to Cancun with a clear, transparent, and most of all deliberate objective of securing for our farmers and fisherfolks the best possible trade terms making them more globally competitive.

The preparations the department undertook for our mission was a democratic but painstaking process that engaged our different stakeholders in extensive consultations. As a result, long hours of discussions and many weeks of consensus-building translated into strategic and pragmatic initiatives the Philippines championed in the United States, Switzerland and finally Mexico.

En route to the Ministerial Conference for Agricultural Science & Technology in Sacramento, California last June, we sent a strong opening signal to the rich nations through the International Food Policy Research Institute in Washington DC, saying that the standards of developed countries have been regarded as impositions by the North on the South over conditions of production and consumption, that are not only uncommon between them but have also created destructive barriers to the South’s trading and economic interests.

Although it was not part of the run-off to WTO Cancun, the Sacramento ministerial confirmed in our minds the great divide between the North and South, between poor and developing countries and their rich and developed counterparts.

We realized, however, that even if the developing countries regarded the developed nations with animosity and suspicion, they were generally cautious at confrontation. That discernment gave us the resolve and boldness to lead in crafting the language the North will understand and the South will support.

So we directly linked the great divide between the two hemispheres as breeding soft spots for terrorism in any society because at the end of the day after arguing all we want about methodologies, the imperative stares directly at our eyes that ensuring a food supply in a sustainable manner to feed a galloping world population has long been overdue and further delay could bring humanity to its last mile.

Upon my return to the Philippines from Sacramento, I immediately instructed our policy and planning specialists at the Department to intensify consultations with the Task Force WTO Agricultural Renegotiation or TF WAR, a broad-based coalition of the executive and legislative branches of government, private business, civic and non-government organizations, farmers and fishermen groups since 1998, and to formalize a definite strategy that the Philippines will espouse for the Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization from Sept. 10-14, 2003 in Cancun, Mexico.

Thereafter, I dispatched Assistant Secretary Segfredo V. Serrano to join Agricultural Attaché Bing Alberto in Geneva, to ventilate our position with the end motive of striking collaboration with other developing countries in favor of special and differential (SND) treatment against trade-distorting modalities of developed countries.

On July 18, 2003, under the leadership of Indonesia and the Philippines, the Alliance for SP and SSM issued a statement and a declarations signed by 14 other countries namely Cuba, Dominican Republic, Honduras, India, Kenya, Mauritius, Nigeria, Pakistan, Panama, Peru, Turkey, Uganda, Venezuela and Zimbabwe.

China, South Korea, Trinidad and Tobago and the Caribbean Community could not as yet sign without explicit clearances from their capitals, but beyond just signifying their intentions, they endorsed the Alliance on the floor of the deliberations of the WTO Committee on Agriculture.

The SP portion of this SND measure allows developing countries to have the additional flexibility of designating "Special Products" not subject to tariff reduction or to any new tariff requirements on quotas (TROs). For the Philippines, SP protection can start with our sensitive products such as rice, corn, sugar, vegetables, poultry and livestock.

The SSM permits additional tariffs in favor of developing countries, over and above regular tariffs, against imports which enjoy subsidies from exporting countries.

The Cairns Group of 17 countries also promoted these two safety nets in favor of poor farmers. But being a microcosm of the rich and poor WTO membership, it faded in the intensity of negotiations in Cancun.

Last month, the United States and Europe presented their own plan that became the foundation for a much-heated debate n Geneva.

But because US-EU proposal ignored many concerns of the developing world, the occasion enabled a new Group of developing nations to push an emergent counterproposal.

Enhanced by the initial spirit of the Alliance, the new Group expanded its membership from 17 to 21 in a matter of days, finally bringing agriculture to serve as the pivotal issue for the Cancun round of trade talks.

The Group comprises a substantial share of the world agricultural population, production and trade representing 63 percent of all farmers in the world, more than 51 percent of the world population, around 20 percent of the world agricultural production and 17 percent of all world imports of agricultural products.

The members of this new group are China, the Philippines, Thailand, India and Pakistan in Asia; Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Paraguay, Peru, Valenzuela, in Latin America, and South Africa and Egypt in the African continent.

G-21, as it is now popularly known, faced off with the US-EU power bloc and demanded the dismantling of $300 billion in export subsidies it gives its farmers each year undermining millions of farmers around the developing world.

The positions of G-21 and the Alliance established a synergy that rocked the halls of the WTO in Cancun because eventually two-thirds of the WTO minister-delegates became loud and united in demanding that before any other issue is taken up, the matter of agricultural reform must first be resolved.

In the world of trade, most developing countries should have an advantage in agriculture because their production, land and labor costs are low.

But farming is now the most protected sector of the economies of the world’s richest countries. In addition to farm subsidies, the United States, Europe, Japan and other First World countries maintain high tariffs blocking imports into their economies, and spend hundreds of billions of dollars subsidizing their food exports.

This has resulted in the dumping of the produce of developed countries into the economies of developing world at prices below the latter’s cost thus undermining the ability of the world’s poor farmers to sell their products for consumption at home or as exports abroad.

As the WTO Uruguay Round expires its validity of five years next year, what happened in Cancun was that the developing countries had successfully blocked the desire of the developed countries to railroad non-agricultural products and provisions, significantly the Singapore issues.

From the perspective of the rich and developed countries therefore, WTO Cancun was a failure because it could not ink a replacement treaty that will rule starting next year, the multilateral world of trade among now 148 countries with the entry of Cambodia and Nepal.

But it was a resounding success for developing countries, especially the Philippine delegation, which actively participated in all deliberations, battling for the three pillars of agricultural reform in WTO, namely domestic support, market access, and export competition.

It was a success because for the first time, the feeble whisper of the poor nations speaking in unanimity, broke the sacrosanct halls of the affluent countries that have lorded over world trading under WTO rules for the past five years.

I said it before, and I am saying it again – we have already paid the price of unbridled free trade, It is now the turn of the few who are rich to make sacrifices.

Cancun, in fact, is the historic turning point from WTO’s imperial reflexes to a truly democratic venue where the opportunity to bring social demands from the streets onto the conference among the world’s highest ministers has happened, not through noisy and violent demonstrations but in the representation of their respective ministers.

Now that we have achieved what I appropriately call the liberation and democratizations of WTO happening significantly before it could fully enforce unbridled liberalization of international trade, WTO cannot and must not end in Cancun.

While concluding its fifth ministerial conference, WTO instructed its General Council to convene a meeting not later than Dec. 15, 2003 to flesh out the pending details in continuing special sessions in Switzerland.

And just as we have broken the domination of WTO by the rich and developed nations and opened the wide avenue for agricultural and trade reforms, we shall continue to shepherd our gains by maintaining our moral ascendancy in the forthcoming Geneva negotiations.

Today, however, I wish to appeal to political cannibals, ideological charlatans, dilettantes and demagogues in Philippine society, to leave the language of anarchy and despair, abandon empty bombast and name-calling, and constructively rally behind our clear, transparent and deliberate efforts to find a more equitable environment for our farmers and fisherfolk.

For just as we found bonding and healing in the solidarity of developing nations, let us find solace and encouragement in our capacity to build the future of our country together.

Finally, and in behalf of the men and women of the Department of Agriculture, I wish to extend my sincerest gratitude to President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, the Departments of Foreign Affairs and Trade and Industry, the National Economic and Development Authority, the Philippine Congress consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives, private business sector, non-government organizations, the academic especially the University of the Philippines Los Baños and the University of Asia and the Pacific, and various local government units and farmers and fishermen organizations who continue to support our resolve to promote and provide Sigla at Yaman sa Kanayunan.

Nothing can be more primordial than serving the interest of 70 percent of our people who are in the countryside, many of whom are living marginal lives. For was it not paradoxically after all an American president who once said, that it is in serving the many who are poor, that we are able to save the few who are rich.