Brussels, 15/06/2016 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday 15 June, European Coordination Via Campesina (ECVC) warned of the risks of the future EU-US free trade agreement (TTIP) and the future EU-Canada free trade agreement (CETA) on the EU's agricultural production, the survival of small farms, the safety of agri-food products, and environmental protection.
“Since the early days of the WTO, agriculture has been one of the hottest potatoes in trade talks. Agribusiness and other corporate lobby groups use trade agreements to increase their market access and profits. The transatlantic trade and investment partnership (TTIP) as well as its 'sister' CETA (Comprehensive Economic Trade Agreement) are an assault on sustainable farming on both sides of the Atlantic”, warned ECVC, the international movement that coordinates small and medium-sized peasant farming organisations, agricultural labourers and rural farms.
TTIP and CETA will have an impact on food safety, animal welfare and environmental protection, lead to further intensification and corporate concentration of agriculture, and threaten peasants' survival as well as citizens' health, Hanny van Geel, a representative from ECVC, warned at a debate in Brussels on Wednesday. Van Geel also underlined the negative effects of the trade agreements on a sustainable food system.
The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) between the US, Canada and Mexico led to rising exports and falling product prices. Van Geel stated that 40% of Canadian producers as well as millions of Mexican peasant farmers had to close down their farms, with Mexican peasant farmers ending up as seasonal and migrant workers in the US.
“Food and agriculture are too important to leave them to business. Food is no commodity - it's a human rights. We need to put people's rights in the centre of our politics. Instead of promoting the neoliberal agribusiness model and supporting large multinational corporations, we need food sovereignty and a sustainable food and agriculture system based on agroecology”, van Geel stated.
“European farmers won't accept betrayal for theoretical opportunities to increase exports to the US or Canada”, ECVC warns, giving assurances that farmers will not let their interests be traded away as part of TTIP and CETA.
According to Friends of the Earth, TTIP will massively increase the import into the EU of US products with lower standards and thus with lower production costs, while offering far fewer benefits to EU agricultural producers. A report published by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) in November 2015 predicts a fall in the contribution of European agriculture to EU GDP (-0.8%) but a rise in the contribution of US agriculture to US GDP (up to +1.9%), Friends of the Earth states.
Mute Schimpf, a representative from Friends of the Earth, says that increased competition could mean the final blow for small-scale and family farms. She also says that killing small farmers will result in the environment being killed.
“European citizens have to be told the truth about how TTIP and CETA would affect food production and farming. Europeans do not want to depend on industrialised food coming from factories instead of family farms. Therefore, we have to sop negotiating in so-called free trade agreements and work together to realise food sovereignty”, van Geel states. (Original version in French by Emmanuel Hagry)