Seeking Solutions to the Agricultural Crisis
As part of the open-trade forums in Miami on November 18th, Oxfam co-convened a public discussion among farmers and farmworker representatives throughout the Americas to speak out on the crisis facing farmers throughout the hemisphere.
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| Bryce Oates, an American livestock and vegetable farmer: "[The FTAA] would eliminate our ability to contain factory farming and dismantle our ability to create local food systems." By: Minor Sinclair/Oxfam |
Minor Sinclair, who directs Oxfam America's domestic program and moderated the forum, began with these words: "There is a crisis in agriculture and the free trade agenda and the FTAA proposal pits producers in the south against producers in the north, and farmworkers against growers. But these groups are the precise ones who are losing from free trade. Farmers and farmworkers across the globe have more interests in common, than in contradiction. And common problems and common interests can lead to common solutions."
Speaker after speaker articulated the problems they face: chronically low crop prices, and the unfair advantages of industrial farm operations and huge grain traders. Free trade stacks the deck against family farmers and small producers in the hemisphere. Fair prices, competitive markets and fair trade agreements between countries are essential to keeping farmers on the land, providing safe and healthy food to consumers, and diversifying the natural resource base.
Aurelio Suarez, a coffee farmer from Colombia, discussed his disappointment with the way the international trade system is working for farmers. "In Colombia, coffee had everything needed to succeed in a neo-liberal economy," he said. "But then the trade in coffee was liberalized and World Bank policies led to a huge glut of coffee," Suarez explained, causing a crash in coffee prices. Colombia used to be the second biggest producer of coffee in the world (behind Brazil). Today's low prices are driving farmers out of their fields. Suarez represents the Union Cafetera Colombiana and Salvación Agropecuaria, one of Oxfam's partners in Colombia.
Free trade has not proven to be a boon for most US family farmers either. They face similar problems as their counterparts in Latin America and the Caribbean. US policies to increase production and lower prices in order to boost its share of the export market is partly responsible for the global decline in major crops such as corn, wheat, cotton, and rice. On the whole, crop prices have dropped 40% from 1996-2001, according to the USDA and the Economic Research Service. The end result is lower prices and less income for farmers despite government subsidies. These moves only exacerbating the overproduction cycle.
Bryce Oates, a 26-year-old livestock and vegetable farmer, called for locally-controlled, diversified food systems as an alternative to the industrial US agricultural system which concentrates the food system in the hands of just a few companies. "Free trade agreement in the Americas would eliminate our ability to contain factory farming and dismantle our ability to create local food systems," Oates said. He represents the Missouri Rural Crisis Center, an organization that helps independent livestock farmers in the Midwest sell directly to restaurants and supermarkets.
Oxfam co-sponsored the event with Farmer to Farmer, Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, Institute for Social Ecology, National Family Farm Coalition, Public Citizen, and the Rural Coalition.