December 04, 2005
KATHMANDU: Peasant leaders of various countries have demanded to remove agriculture sector from rules of World Trade Organization (WTO) for food sovereignty and for the benefit of peasants across the world.
Speaking at a press conference at the end of the two-day International Conference in the capital on Sunday, the leaders said the rules of the WTO force countries, especially developing ones, to open up the food market, forests and public service for transactional cooperation, which will hamper the national economy of such countries.
They demanded to suspend the subsidies in agriculture products as given by developed countries and put appropriate restrictions in import of goods in developing countries specially Least Developed Countries (LDCs’) saying the developing countries are facing problem from increasing food imports.
The Kathmandu declaration issued after the two-day conference said, “While the developing countries are faced with increasing food imports, the prices of their domestic products also went down. Peasant cannot sell their products on their own local national market and the local economy will collapse.”
The declaration demanded to implement the programme of food sovereignty as the basis of international treaties and implement comprehensive land and agrarian reform.
It had also demanded to reject landlord oriented land reform policy and formulate new policy on behalf of tillers.
The conference also decided to organize various protest programs during the sixth ministerial conference of the WTO to be held in Hong Kong from December 13-18.
“We will ask the government of developing countries to raise their voices strongly for the welfare of peasants of LDCs’ during the upcoming sixth ministerial meeting, along with various protest programs,” said Bam Dev Gautam, Chairman of All Nepal Peasants Association.
“We will mobilize people during the WTO ministerial conference against liberalization of agriculture for the welfare of millions of peasants across the world,” said Paul Nicholson, member of La Via Campesina, an International organization working for the peasant’s rights.
The conference also expressed solidarity to the ongoing agitation of the seven opposition political parties for the restoration of total democracy in the country.
“We the participants of the international conference express our warm solidarity with the struggling people and peasants of Nepal in their struggle to put an end to the autocratic rules and for the establishment of peace, social justice, people’s democracy and food sovereignty,” the declaration reads.
Over 1,200 peasant activists from India, Bangladesh, Philippines, Europe, Indonesia and Nepal had participated in the two-day conference.