In the spotlight 1
It’s time to change the way we do global trade
Since its creation, social movements, including La Via Campesina, have fought against free trade, particularly the World Trade Organization (WTO), uniting farmers’ organizations worldwide. We’ve mobilized in cities like Seattle, Cancun, Hong Kong, Buenos Aires and Geneva. These struggles have significantly contributed to the WTO’s ongoing crisis, and it has remained stagnant since the 2001 Doha agreements.
Despite these victories, free trade continues to harm the global peasantry. The 1995 WTO Agreement on Agriculture (AoA) still authorizes the aggressive trade policies of the US and EU while criminalizing market regulation and support for small producers in many Southern countries. Furthermore, bilateral and regional free trade agreements (FTAs) have proliferated: exacerbating the destruction of market regulation and opening markets to agro-industrial imports (including GM crops); promoting stricter rules on intellectual property (TRIPS+) including enforcement with criminal punishment for infringement; and consolidating corporate control over land by dismantling collective lands ownership. All of which has strengthened transnational companies’ control over food systems and deepened the state of poverty that peasant farmers find themselves in.
Since 1995, international agricultural trade dependency has increased, although it should be remembered that this dependence is still very relative, since only 15% of the world’s food production goes through international markets. However, when La Via Campesina representatives demand governments to leave the WTO, they are systematically refused, even by those sharing our values. Governments view severing ties with international trade as unthinkable and potentially disastrous.
In June 2022, during the anti-WTO demonstrations in Geneva, social movements highlighted the institution’s extreme fragility. Southern countries continue to protest against unjust trade rules, particularly the AoA. This process has been led by India, which defends its market regulation model. Amid intense geopolitical conflict, criticism of the Western-dominated trade order has grown. However, despite our efforts, an agreement, though minimal, was still reached in Geneva to maintain the WTO. WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala seeks to save the institution through proposed reforms. Yet the WTO reform is doomed to fail because of its own inherent contradictions and it will eventually disappear. Social movements must aid its demise by proposing a new framework for international trade that countries can adopt without fear of isolation. This alternative would offer a more equitable system benefiting global populations.
The goal is to create a discussion and negotiation tool for governments, especially those in the South dissatisfied with the WTO’s unfair rules, encouraging them to negotiate a new international trade framework. Success requires this process and our proposals to be well understood and supported by peasant and small-scale farmer organizations and their allies. The process must be inclusive with accessible language and intensive internal training.
The UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Others Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP) serves as a profound inspiration for this work. This was both an internal process within La Via Campesina to build a tool supported by farmers’ organizations globally and a diplomatic process involving institutions (such as the Human Rights Council for UNDROP, UNCTAD, FAO, and others for the international trade framework) and states (like Bolivia’s key role in UNDROP). UNDROP took 17 years to be adopted by the UN General Assembly. Similarly, this work on trade will take time. As peasants, patience and endurance are our hallmarks, and we are not afraid of the long haul.
An international trade framework based on food sovereignty is essential. We must build it, step by step from the ground up, convincing governments and UN institutions that the time has come to create international trade by and for the people.
In the spotlight 2
Territorial markets: Food chains building stronger communities
Behind the huge power and visibility of the corporate food chains, closer-to-home markets are actually playing a vital role. Far away from the business spotlights, and with much less support and resources, they feed a large part of the world and have proven to be much more resilient to crises and shocks.
A new report published by IPES-Food reveals that local markets and food chains boost food security and resilience, provide nutritious food for poorer populations, support livelihoods, protect the environment, and strengthen communities. These ‘territorial markets’, include a wide range of realities in all parts of the world, from public markets to street vendors, cooperatives, urban agriculture, community kitchens, online direct sales and many more.
While agribusiness uses more than two third of agricultural land and resources and keeps pretending to feed the world, data shows that huge volumes of fresh foods are supplied outside of corporate chains, often direct-to-consumer. In sub-Saharan Africa and Asia, small-scale and family farmers produce 80% of the food supply; while global chains account for only roughly 15-20% of total food consumption. In Dhaka, Bangladesh, over 400 markets feed more than 25 million people every day, and 95% of the city’s urban poor purchase most of their food from these fresh food markets. In Mexico, open-air and traditional markets account for half of all fruit and vegetables that are sold for retail; in Kenya, Zambia, and Nicaragua, it is over 90%.
In contrast to this we have seen, in recent times, the pandemic, the invasion of Ukraine, and escalating climate shocks leading to supply chain chaos, volatile food prices, empty shelves, and a surge in hunger levels. In times of crises, corporate food chains tend to break down, while localized food supply offers a much more adaptable and equitable solution. Additionally, territorial markets support the livelihoods of millions of small-scale producers and nurture strong food cultures and diverse therapeutic traditions in a more sustainable way. They bring people together, opening spaces for popular education and strengthening social fabric. All over the world, interest is now growing in the variety of vibrant food provisioning systems that exist beyond global food chains and corporate control.
However, territorial markets are delivering these benefits against the current of unfavorable policies and economic conditions. Around the world, investment and government support has been skewed towards industrial export agriculture, global trade and large-scale infrastructures. Meanwhile, informal markets and street vendors lack basic services like clean water and sanitation facilities, while facing unsuitable, corporate-oriented health and hygiene rules – as well as the risk of violent closures and evictions. Wholesale markets have often been starved of government investment.
Globally, 70% of smallholders’ needs for financing go unmet, and in Africa less than 10% have access to formal credit. Without adequate storage facilities, they are forced to sell at low prices when there is a glut on the market. Institutional purchasers like schools and hospitals lack on-site processing capacity, driving them to larger corporate vendors.
There is clearly an urgent need to invest in territorial markets. There is also huge potential for governments to strengthen and support these markets, making them a cornerstone of food security, vibrant economies, and climate resilience for years to come.
Read more in IPES-Food’s new report : Food From Somewhere