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WTO slowly killing peasants!

Ka Willy Marbella
Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas

December 12, 2005

The WTO has never been beneficial to peasants. In fact, it has further mired us into poverty. Globalization in the form of importations of agricultural products ruined the economy and the livelihood of farmers and rural producers. Rice importation went up by 1,073%; corn, 653%; chicken, 1200 %; beef, 230%; pork, 1700%; and vegetables, 169%.

The mass flooding of imported agricultural products forced farm gate prices to go down by 7 to 11 % at the average. Most affected were major crops locally produced such as unhusked rice (5%), sugar cane (6%), coconut (32%), while prices of pineapple, mango, coffee, and copra went down further by an average of 13 to 19 % within the spread of eight years.

Onion and vegetable growers are already bankrupt due to the flooding of cheap onions and vegetables from China and other countries. Vegetable growers from the vegetable capital of the Philippines registered a P53 million loss in 2003. Who benefits from all these? It is rather an old question to an already obvious answer: countries such as the US, Japan, and the conglomerate European Union.

The continuous plunder and monopoly control over food and agriculture post an imminent threat and danger to the food security of many nations. The poor farmers withstand the worst of the massive onslaught of imperialist globalization. Globalization under the WTO worsened the plight of farmers who are already impoverished by landlessness and other oppressive and exploitative relations they are into.

We are being dealt a slow death by the WTO. The call for its junking has been proven correct. Since we first demanded it even before our entry to the moribund organization, it is high time that it be junked in its 6th ministerial meeting in Hong Kong. #

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