Food Security, Farming, CAFTA and the WTO
By Deborah James

Porfirio supports his family in Nicaragua by growing beans to eat and sell. He spends most of his day tending to his beans as well as working with his wife to maintain their house and raise all five of their children. If a new "free trade" agreement called CAFTA passes, Porfirio fears that he will not be able to get a decent price for his beans. The cheapest beans at the market in Managua are imported from the US where the average farmer receives $21,000 a year in subsidies from the government. It is impossible for Porfirio's beans to compete against corporate agribusiness. After producing beans and feeding his family his entire life, Porfirio has been told that the best way for him to compete in the free market (under CAFTA) is to produce sesame, an export crop. His success will be dependent on the whims of the international market. When international sesame prices fall, Porfirio will not be able to sell his sesame. He will have no money to buy food for his family, and his family can't survive eating sesame. He may have to sell his land and become one more unemployed person desperately looking for work in the cities or migrating to a wealthy country. (Witness for Peace)

As a necessary element to human survival, food is a human right. Small, local family farms are the bedrock of traditional rural communities and global food security- the ability of countries to produce the food they need to survive. Yet the global food supply is increasingly falling under the control of giant multinational corporations. Large agribusinesses have rewritten the rules of the global agricultural economy, using "free trade" agreements to turn food into a commodity for profit rather than a human right. The global corporatization of agriculture has had disastrous effects on farmers, food security, and the environment.

Implemented in 1994, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), 'liberalized' trade between Canada, the U.S. and Mexico. Under NAFTA, farmers' income in all three countries has plummeted and millions of small farmers have lost their land, while agribusiness corporations have reaped huge profits.

In spite of its obvious failures, new trade agreements are being written to expand NAFTA-style corporate free trade. In March of 2004, the governments of the United States, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, Costa Rica, and the Dominican Republic completed the U.S.-Dominican Republic-Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). If CAFTA is passed in the U.S. Congress, it would impose NAFTA-style agricultural policies on the heavily agriculture-dependent countries of Central America. Over 5.5 million workers and farmers' livelihoods would be put at risk. CAFTA would also cause a further decline in U.S. family farmers' incomes.

What's more, CAFTA would pave the way for a massive Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) currently in negotiations, which would extend the scope of NAFTA to include all countries in the western hemisphere except Cuba—thus multiplying the harrowing effects of NAFTA on small farmers and threatening food security for generations to come.

Both CAFTA and the FTAA are even more extreme than the Agreement on Agriculture (AOA) of the World Trade Organization (WTO), a global agreement involving 148 countries designed to shift world food production to export markets.

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A growing poverty gap is formed as the term 'globalization' is indoctrinated in our daily life. as a result, health inequalities is rising.

like what the article said large agribusinesses use "free trade" agreements to turn food into a commodity for profit rather than a human right. The global corporatization of agriculture has had disastrous effects on farmers, food security, and the environment.

The basic facts are known: 20% of the world’s population live in absolute poverty, with an income of less than $1 per day. Surviving on less than $2 a day is a reality for almost half the people on the planet. Those living in absolute poverty are five times more likely to die before reaching five years of age than those in higher income groups.

In many countries of the world health systems have deteriorated: food accessibility is poor, quality of food is poor, drugs are not available. In some low income countries over 70% of the health budget is coming from external sources.

The drive toward globalization of agriculture put transnational corporations in control of the entire food supply. Market forces, rather than national policies set by democratically elected officials, control agricultural food systems. Under this scenario, each country only produce a few export commodities, wiping out local food production, small family farms, and greatly compromising global food security. As a result, the human right to food would be dependent on multinational corporations and markets, increasing the risk of hunger and famine worldwide.

It seems that "globalization" is tool for those rich people or countries to gain more profit, while those poor farmers are suffering from the "globalization". The gap between richness and poverty is increasing and thus cause the food inequalities. People in poor countries have to depend on multinational corporations and markets and they even do not have enough money to maintain their families' daily life. The food security is very low as they are not able to access clean and healthy food. Also in those poor countries, hospitals do not have advanced equipment to treat patients and drugs are not enough or even not available. Healthy problem goes from bad to worse.

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