Kofi Annan's new ambitions. Do you have to hand a copy of Kofi Annan's manifesto “for a green revolution in Africa”? Several print media have published it. Barely six months ago, Kofi Annan was one of the most important people on the planet: Secretary General of the United Nations. At the end of his period of office, he decided, as he put it, to undertake a new challenge: to give fresh impetus to Africa by revitalising the small farms on which so many depend for their livelihood and their income. Thus he has taken the opposite view from those who - honestly or not, depending on whom - believe that it is only by opening world markets as much as possible that African agriculture will be helped.
This opening of markets is one of the most shameless myths of our time: local production disappears, to be replaced by monoculture for export, the disastrous consequence of yesterday's colonisation carried on today by multinationals, supported all too often by corrupt politicians. At first sight, African states would appear to benefit from export markets being opened. However, they, in return, have to open theirs. The results are there to see. They lose all food autonomy and any hope of achieving it one day. Food production disappears or is rapidly killed off by competition from other exporting countries. Attempts to raise, for example chickens, cannot withstand the competition from European or Brazilian farms. These same states become forever dependent on imports. Their peoples derive no benefit, because monoculture is only good for multinationals. World prices vary so greatly that things are not always profitable: one bad crop can ruin a year. The number of people involved in such production is very restricted anyway; former farmers migrate to the towns which explode in size.
No more “European preferences”. The disasters caused by uncontrolled globalisation do not stop there. Thanks to the EU's preferential schemes, African countries could retain or gain strong trading positions in Europe for some products: bananas, sugars, some oils. But the policy of world liberalisation does away with “preferences” and means that African countries would have to compete with other, more powerful, more efficient, exporting countries. The EU is subject to continuous political pressure and the results are there to be seen for bananas and sugar. Some ACP countries themselves, blinded, support the removal of European preferences and some otherwise worthwhile international organisations, like Oxfam, have betrayed their role of helping the world's poor and are acting on behalf of big business and multinationals.
Kofi Annan's manifesto would suggest that he has understood the problems: “Africa is the only region of the world where food production per inhabitant is constantly falling. Two hundred million Africans, one third of the continent's population, suffer from chronic malnutrition”. The priority is “to give small farmers the means to cultivate and sell their products. … What is needed is participative solutions tailored to the local situation, which bring big improvements in the returns of small farms. Our producers need better seeds, improved soil and more attractive sales prices, they want better access to water, to markets and to credit schemes”. This is the direction in which African countries' national policies should be moving, and Kofi Annan backs the African Union programme which aims at a 6% annual growth in food production by 2015. He concludes, “Increasing agricultural productivity, combined with protecting the environment, is the only way to sustainably eradicate poverty and hunger in Africa”.
The success of this programme depends on the African countries themselves, and on their desire and their ability to implement it. But for this, Africa needs support and aid, the primary source of which is, and will continue to be, Europe. Commissioner Louis Michel once again confirmed this in his speech in Yaounde on 16 July: the EU will increase its funding. In addition and especially, the EU is, and will remain, by far the largest importer of agricultural products from Africa (and from the least developed countries in general). Other countries talk a good game, but their imports from Africa are much lower, sometimes negligible. However, if the constant pressure on Europe to get rid of or radically reduce its border protection in agriculture were to succeed, one thing is certain: China and other major exporting countries would very quickly take over from Africa on European markets. That is the aim of some of the negotiators in Geneva, it is the aim of the multinationals, it is the aim of Oxfam and other organisations. The EU must resist, and the ACP countries must support it.
Saving Indian traditions. After Kofi Annan's manifesto, I will quote the statements of Vandana Shiva, an Indian woman and leader of the Navdanya movement for the preservation of biodiversity. She is against excessively mechanised agricultural practices, which sometimes, with their tractors, fertilisers, transport systems, and huge use of fossil fuels, pollute more than industrial activity. Rather than uniformisation, the sole aim of which is maximum efficiency, she argues for “forgotten foods: varieties of vegetable which can survive with very little water and provide greater energy than standard cereals; millet and all those kinds of rice and wheat which are disappearing in India because farmers cannot compete with the multinationals. If I had to have a slogan, it would be: the forgotten foods must become the food of the future”. She says that some varieties of rice can be irrigated with salt water. Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are unacceptable because they are harmful to biodiversity and the environment in general.
There is nothing new in all this. Kofi Annan's statement and the Vandana Shiva's comments are not new: there have been several other similar stances beforehand. They are important at this point, when some ACP states and India seem (if their official position is to be believed) to be among the supporters of liberalisation of world agricultural trade as a means of tackling food shortages and to affirm each country's right to a reasonable level of food autonomy and the protection of its environment and biodiversity. I would re-direct you to this column of 27 May 2003 (newsletter 8470), not because I enjoy quoting myself, but because it speaks about basic texts on the matter we are studying. It is not I, but John Madeley (author of “Food for All: the need for a new agriculture”) who quotes learned studies (from the UNCTAD and FAO, among others) which “demonstrate the harmful effect of liberalisation of agricultural trade on food security”. Export crops lead to the creation of large farms, pushing aside small farmers and increasing unemployment and poverty. Anuradha Mittal says that full liberalisation of world trade in foodstuffs “destroys farmers' ability to produce food for their families and local communities”, and the financial compensations bring wealth to a privileged few and multinationals, with nothing for the farmers who find themselves in positions of great uncertainty.
These quotes have been taken, along with several others, from a publication (Courier - ACP-EU development cooperation magazine) sponsored by the European Commission, which gives the impression of having forgotten them. The negative effects of unfair competition from European food products, the export of which is subsidised by the EU, are also criticised (except when the poorer countries themselves want them to get the foodstuffs they need at the lowest prices). We know now, however, that the EU is ready to undertake to get rid of export subsidies.
I am not criticising those countries which continue to call for the greatest possible liberalisation of agricultural trade: they are defending their legitimate interests, they are targeting the European market because it is solvent. This is a fair objective, but will do nothing for the interests of the poorest countries (China will be the great beneficiary, they only have to wait) or for tackling hunger in the world. It is normal for countries like Ecuador, Colombia, Panama and Nicaragua to attack the “preference” which the EU wants to retain for ACP bananas. When the complaint comes from the United States, however, (see newsletter 9459 from the start of this month), it is not about any national production; it is simply about the interests of a few multinationals.
Taking European agriculture as a single whole. Moreover, within the EU itself, some governments think more of the interests of big business than saving agricultural activity in Europe, unless local interests are at stake. The new chairman of the European Parliament agriculture committee, Neil Parish, is British, and he has called for a ban on the import of Brazilian beef into the EU: does it surprise you to discover that the source of this call is a Scottish and Irish breeders' report! This reminds me of the attitude of the Netherlands, fierce defenders of full liberalisation of agricultural trade (to the extent of having fiercely defended arrangements on rice imports which would have led to the disappearance of all rice production in Europe) until liberalisation of imports of flowers from Africa. The Netherlands, a major flower producer, then called for - and got - reasonable import conditions, the same conditions they steadfastly refused for other agricultural products that were important to other member states.
Today, everyone looks after his/her national interests. What about trying to consider European agriculture as a single whole, as a common interest?
(F.R.)