WUNRN
April 21, 2009
A Statement from Asia
Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development (APWLD) forwarded by the Asian
Human Rights Commission
ASIA: Rural & Indigenous Women Claim Our Right to Food!
You claim that although the food crisis we
suffered globally in 2008 is only a cyclical phase, the serious structural
problems remain. The structural problems affect much more people in developing
countries with less bargaining power in front of the powerful G8 countries, and
rural and indigenous women among the most marginalised.
In the post-colonial, post-war era, Green Revolution, a chemically driven
agricultural production system, was pushed in the vast agrarian land of the
developing world, by agencies such as International Monetary Fund-World Bank
(IMF-WB), and brought about a dramatic change in agricultural production. It
made farmers dependent on external inputs such as high yielding variety of
seeds, chemical fertilisers, toxic pesticides and modern machinery, which
benefited the profit-oriented global agro-business corporation but drove
peasants to further impoverishment.
In the age of globalisation, the IMF-WB through structural adjustment
programmes have pressured our governments to drastically reduce subsidies in
agricultural production, which have resulted in millions of small farmers world
wide to get into a vicious cycle of debt, poverty, hunger and for many suicide
has been the final escape from their misery.
The WTO, through agreements such as the Agreement on Agriculture, has compelled
agricultural countries to import a minimum volume of exportable agricultural
products from other countries irrespective of the fact that they are self
-sufficient or not. This situation imposes governments to be importing grains
and other agricultural products therefore leading to the bankruptcy of local
agricultural production. Trade liberalisation has allowed monopolistic
transnational corporations (TNCs) to gain tremendous power to control the trade
and marketing of essential staples such as rice and wheat and other
agricultural products of farmers.
Before, many developing countries were either net food exporters, or at least
were nearly food self-sufficient. India, once a wheat exporting country was
forced to become the largest wheat importer. The Philippines, which for a time
produced enough rice to feed its population, is now the world's largest
importer of rice. A crucial factor related to food is land. Most farmers in
developing countries do not own the land they till. But instead of providing
land to the landless, under the pressure of WTO, IMF- WB agreements, the
governments and ruling elites in the countries have facilitated land-grabbing,
monopoly and re-concentration of land to big land owners including government
and corporations.
Rural and indigenous women are disproportionately affected by the food crisis
because they are most confronted with impoverishment, illiteracy, high health
risks, inadequate access to productive resources and market, because of the
persistent patriarchal and feudal system governing rural areas. Furthermore,
structural adjustment programmes designed by the IMF-WB, which call for cuts in
government spending and for privatisation of state owned enterprises and
services, often make the cuts on various social services, essential in the
women’s performance of their productive and reproductive roles. The
disproportionate impact on indigenous women is further intensified by the
imposition of extractive industries like mining, commercial logging and
plantations on their lands in the name of greater profits for corporations and
national development for governments at the expense of the survival of
indigenous women and their communities.
Women’s roles and much of women’s work are not valued within the current
neoliberal economic system which places primary value on paid labour. While
rural and indigenous women are the mainstay of small-scale agriculture and
fishing, farm labour force and day-to-day family subsistence, they have more
difficulty than men in gaining access to resources such as land and credit and
productivity enhancing inputs and services in societies and communities. Women
in the agricultural sector and fishery have also been adversely affected by the
promotion of export-oriented economic policies, trade liberalisation and TNCs’
activities in agriculture. Rural and indigenous women in developing countries
continue to struggle with multiple work responsibilities in food crop
production, family agricultural activities, household and non market work.
Despite those devastating effects of the neoliberal globalisation policies on
the lives of farmers, particularly women farmers, the direction of the measures
to tackle the world food emergency proposed by G8 countries and Food and
Agriculture Organisation is to strengthen the current global policy of privatisation,
deregulation and trade liberalisation. Implementing the second Green Revolution
in Africa would only cause another cycle of food crisis and exacerbate the
situation faced by the peasants. The measures must be based on human rights of
the poorest and must address the structural problems which have been causing
the world food crisis. The G8 countries must learn from their past and ongoing
failures to eliminate poverty and commit to achieving the Millenium Development
Goals and implementing the principles of Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness
through sincere dialogue with developing countries and peoples who have
shouldered the result of their failure.
Agriculture is the source of women farmers’ lives and survival. Food is not a
commodity of trade and speculation for profit of the developed countries. The
right to food is not just supply of adequate and nutritious food. We, rural and
indigenous women demand our RIGHT as food producers to produce food and have
access to productive resources such as land, water, capital, technology; RIGHT
to seeds preserved and handed down over the generations; RIGHT to protect and
develop our land, natural resource and environment, and diversity in rural and
indigenous culture and ecology.
Rural and Indigenous Women Task Force
Women and Environment Task Force
Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development (APWLD)
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