[AHRC Forwarded Statement] ASIA: Rural and 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.
Dear friends,
We wish to share with you the following statement from Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development (APWLD).
Asian Human Rights Commission
Hong Kong
-------------
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
AHRC-FST-029-2009
April 21, 2009
A Statement from Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development (APWLD) forwarded by the Asian Human Rights Commission
ASIA: Rural and 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)
