View previous stories
	Land and tax laws to favour private investors over small farmers by Guardian News, Grain, Fian International Latin America   Feb 2014   Critics say landmark initiative to boost agriculture and relieve poverty favours big business to the detriment of small farmers.   A landmark G8 initiative to boost agriculture and relieve poverty has been damned as a new form of colonialism after African governments agreed to change seed, land and tax laws to favour private investors over small farmers.   Ten countries made more than 200 policy commitments, including changes to laws and regulations after giant agribusinesses were granted unprecedented access to decision-makers over the past two years.   The pledges will make it easier for companies to do business in Africa through the easing of export controls and tax laws, and through governments ringfencing huge chunks of land for investment.   The Ethiopian government has said it will "refine" its land law to encourage long-term land leases and strengthen the enforcement of commercial farm contracts. In Malawi, the government has promised to set aside 200,000 hectares of prime land for commercial investors by 2015, and in Ghana, 10,000 hectares will be made available for investment by the end of next year. In Nigeria, promises include the privatisation of power companies.   A Guardian analysis of companies plans under the initiative suggests dozens of investments are for non-food crops, including cotton, biofuels and rubber, or for projects explicitly targeting export markets.   Companies were invited to the table through the G8 New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition initiative that pledges to accelerate agricultural production and lift 50 million people out of poverty by 2022.   But small farmers, who are supposed to be the main beneficiaries of the programme, have been shut out of the negotiations.   Olivier de Schutter, the UN special rapporteur on the right to food, said governments had been making promises to investors "completely behind the screen", with "no long-term view about the future of smallholder farmers" and without their participation.   He described Africa as the last frontier for large-scale commercial farming. "There''s a struggle for land, for investment, for seed systems, and first and foremost there''s a struggle for political influence," he said.   Zitto Kabwe, the chairman of the Tanzanian parliament''s public accounts committee, said he was "completely against" the commitments his government has made to bolster private investment in seeds.   "By introducing this market, farmers will have to depend on imported seeds. This will definitely affect small farmers. It will also kill innovation at the local level. We have seen this with manufacturing," he said.   "It will be like colonialism. Farmers will not be able to farm until they import, linking farmers to [the] vulnerability of international prices. Big companies will benefit. We should not allow that."   Tanzania''s tax commitments would also benefit companies rather than small farmers, he said, adding that the changes proposed would have to go through parliament. "The executive cannot just commit to these changes. These are sensitive issues. There has to be enough debate," he said.   Million Belay, the head of the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA), said the initiative could spell disaster for small farmers in Africa. "It clearly puts seed production and distribution in the hands of companies," he said.   "The trend is for companies to say they cannot invest in Africa without new laws … Yes, agriculture needs investment, but that shouldn''t be used as an excuse to bring greater control over farmers lives.   "More than any other time in history, the African food production system is being challenged. More than any other time in history outside forces are deciding the future of our farming systems."   AFSA has also denounced the G8 initiative as ushering in a new wave of colonialism on the continent.   Barack Obama launched the New Alliance at the 2012 G8 summit at Camp David, following years of underinvestment in agriculture and the failure of donors to disburse millions of dollars in funding for global food security promised at the 2009 G8 meeting in L''Aquila, Italy.   Just eight African governments have met their own commitment, made under the Maputo accord in 2003, to invest 10% of their budgets in agricultural development.   With traditional aid budgets under pressure, donors are increasingly turning to the private sector to fill the gap, sparking concerns that taxpayer money to help the world''s poorest people is being diverted to programmes that raise the profile and promote the interests of commercial investors.   Six African countries signed up to the New Alliance at launch, and another four joined last year.   The initiative relies on the "personal commitment of top-level leaders", according to a document from its overarching leadership council, seen by the Guardian. The council brings African presidents together with the heads of donor agencies and top business executives. The CEOs of companies including Unilever and the agribusiness giants Syngenta, Yara and Cargill have had seats on the leadership council.   Companies have refused to make their full investment plans under the New Alliance available for public scrutiny, and freedom of information requests to the UK government were rejected on the basis of commercial confidentiality.   A consultant hired by donors to draft a co-operation agreement for the New Alliance in Malawi said it helped to raise the profile of private investors needs at the most senior level of government.   http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2014/feb/18/g8-new-alliance-condemned-new-colonialism   Corporate control over seeds. (GRAIN, FIAN International)   The world’s agribusiness corporations are pursuing their attempts to privatize and monopolize our seeds. Behind their efforts is a clear goal: to make the age-old practice of saving and breeding seeds into a crime and gain monopoly control over seeds. Latin America has not escaped these attacks.   Much of this corporate activity is being carried out under the aegis of an international convention known as UPOV, but not all of it – some Latin American governments have come up with farm-unfriendly provisions of their own devising, involving patents on biotechnology “events,” health standards, marketing standards, certification laws, various types of record keeping requirements, tax rules, the misnamed “good agricultural practices,” research programs, seed market establishment policies, and more.   Eight years ago we wrote, “If we look at them today, seed laws are all about repression. They’re about what farmers can’t do. They dictate what kind of seeds can’t be sold, can’t be exchanged and in some cases can’t even be used. All in the name of regulating trade and protecting food growers! In this sense, seeds laws go hand in hand with intellectual property rights (IPR) regimes like plant variety protection and patents. The two kinds of laws – marketing regulations and property rights – reinforce each other.”   If anything has changed since then, it is that privatization strategies have become more numerous, extreme, and ambitious. What the multinationals and the governments were not expecting was the level of the popular resistance that has emerged at the national and regional levels.   What is UPOV?   The International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV) is an intergovernmental organization with its head office in Geneva, Switzerland. UPOV came into being with the adoption of the International Convention for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants. The Convention was adopted in Paris in 1961 and was revised in 1972, 1978, and 1991. The mission of UPOV is, according to the organization, “to provide and promote an effective system of plant variety protection, with the aim of encouraging the development of new varieties of plants, for the benefit of society.” In UPOV-speak, “protection” means privatization.   The history of UPOV is that of an ongoing and apparently limitless expansion of seed company rights along with a concomitant shrinkage of farmers’ rights and freedoms. The original convention only granted property rights over varieties developed by the party requesting them; it granted little more than an exclusive right to market a private variety and did not establish specific sanctions. With its subsequent revisions, UPOV now grants monopoly rights over “discovered” varieties and the production, marketing, export and import thereof. In addition, it allows property owners to apply for the confiscation of crops, plantations, harvests, and products derived from the harvest. It even allows companies to file criminal complaints, which can lead to prison terms for farmers.   UPOV 91 is the version of the convention now being imposed around the world under the pretext of “protection.” However, it has been clearly demonstrated that UPOV 91 violates farmers’ individual and collective right to save seed for replanting and allows corporations to monopolize biodiversity. These provisions give the corporations total commercial control over seeds and knowledge that were once owned collectively by whole communities. A further menace represented by UPOV is that it accelerates the erosion of biodiversity by promoting varietal uniformity. This is tremendously risky because uniformity can lead to crop loss and greater food insecurity. Finally, seed privatization hinders research and the free flow of knowledge.   In Latin America and the Caribbean, the following countries are UPOV members: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Dominican Republic, Trinidad and Tobago, and Uruguay. Of these, only Costa Rica, Panama, the Dominican Republic, and Peru are currently applying UPOV 91.3   The seed laws now being drafted amount to the wholesale application of UPOV 91 and in some cases go even further. For example:   a) They allow for the privatization of “discovered” varieties. Not only is this nonsensical from the standpoint of intellectual property law (only human inventions are patentable), it is absurd when applied to plant varieties, which are mostly the work of many human beings over long periods of time. In other words, the new laws allow companies or research institutes to take what does not belong to them: the indigenous plant varieties developed by farmers. This theft is facilitated by the absence of any provision in the laws that would prevent varieties shown to be already circulating in peasant agriculture from being declared “new.”   b) The theft becomes truly outrageous where new laws grant property rights over “similar” varieties as well, regardless of how long these have been in existence. In other words, UPOV laws legalize retroactive theft. One such clause, included in Resolution 970, put forward by Colombian Institute for Livestock and Agriculture (ICA), touched off a farmers’ strike that forced the government to withdraw the resolution.   c) Penalties for those who refuse to make sense out of this nonsense are significantly increased. Not only can seeds be confiscated, so can the crops, plantations, harvests, and products derived from them. The offences are summary in nature, meaning that complainants can avoid lengthy evidentiary proceedings and still obtain the confiscation of the materials in question. Practical experience provides good reasons to fear that the corporations will try to scare farmers and peasants who dare to rebel by hitting them with multiple complaints under these laws. The situation is exacerbated by the option for the corporations to file criminal complaints, which can result in jail terms for the farmers.   This is the heart of the UPOV laws. Some of them go even further: in the Chilean case, the law initially gave enforcement power to the seed companies, creating a de facto private police. The Argentine bill creates a mandatory registry of “seed users” – meaning anyone who grows food, for a living or otherwise.   And the UPOV laws themselves are only part of the story. Certification and marketing laws have been a central feature of seed privatization campaigns in Mexico and Colombia. Brazil has turned to marketing standards. In Argentina, the privatization of biotechnological “events” is making unfortunate headway, while throughout the Southern Cone, corporations are creating a parallel legal universe by forcing their customers to sign royalty-bearing private contracts. Almost everywhere we find credit and technical assistance policies being made contingent on the use of seeds produced by corporations or research institutes.   All these mechanisms work together towards a single goal: absolute corporate control over seeds.   But Latin America is also where citizens have successfully resisted many such attempts to take away their rights. Visit the link below for a rundown of ongoing popular campaigns that have been key to the defeat of these corporate machinations.   http://www.grain.org/article/entries/4808-seed-laws-in-latin-america-the-offensive-continues-so-does-popular-resistance   October 2013 (FIAN International)   Biofuels Industry strong-arms Governments at UN Food Security conference.   Civil Society movements accused Governments for protecting the interests of the biofuels industry rather than the interests of people pushed into hunger by biofuel policies at the Committee on World Food Security.   ROME, Italy – Today 11-10-2013, Civil Society movements blamed Governments negotiating on biofuels at the Committee on World Food security for defending the interests of the biofuels industry rather than the interests of people pushed into hunger by biofuel policies. They refused to endorse the recommendations on biofuels as any references to Human Rights, links with food price spikes and land grabbing have been systematically refused.   Governments acknowledged that biofuels crops compete with food crops and influence food prices but did not have the courage to recommend any action to stop this. The domination of pro biofuel countries in talks has resulted in decisions heavily favorable for biofuels expansion. Governments who spoke expressing strong misgivings have largely been ignored.   "Small scale food producers have spoken powerfully here about the reality they are confronted with every day: that biofuels crops compete with their food production, for the land they till and for the water that sustains them. They called on this assembly to take action to defend the right to food from the impacts of biofuels; instead the recommendations overwhelmingly defend the interests of the biofuels industry and legitimise violations of the right to food."   In June the High Level Panel of Experts (HLPE), on the request of the CFS, released its report on biofuels policies to inform the negotiations. The report clearly concluded that there is a link between the energy policy and food security and that biofuels have been a key driver behind steep food price spikes and food price volatility in recent years. Other independent research such as by the European Commission has confirmed such findings.   Estimates suggest about six million hectares of land in sub-Saharan Africa is already controlled by European biofuel companies and about 293 land grabs covering more than 17 million hectares worldwide have been reported due to biofuels.   On Monday more than 80 civil society organizations sent a letter to CFS members warning that the current recommendations would fail to uphold the Right to Food or stop hunger caused by biofuels.   http://www.fian.org/news/article/detail/biofuels-industry-strong-arms-governments-at-un-food-security-conference/   A Manual for Social Movements and Civil Society Organizations   The Global Strategic Framework for Food Security and Nutrition (GSF), as adopted in its first version in October 2012 by the Committee on World Food Security, is intended to become the primary global reference for coordination and coherence in decision making on food, nutrition and agricultural issues. Many social movements and civil society organizations participated in the elaboration of this global intergovernmental consensus document and consider it a step forward in promoting a new model of governance on food, agriculture, and nutrition.   The process of implementing the GSF at the national level is crucial to its success. The goal is to ensure that key elements of the GSF can be used at the national level to advance important demands for policy changes towards the full realization of the human right to food and nutrition.   To this end, it is important that "national ownership" be widely recognized and understood as "democratic ownership".   States have a fundamental role to play in the application of the GSF at national and sub-national levels, but it is also important that social movements and civil society organizations contribute by making use of this important tool in their initiatives and struggles at local, national and international levels.   For this purpose, this new Manual documents some of the most important references and quotes in the GSF that both represent important achievements for social movements and civil society organizations, and also provide concrete and practical examples of how the document can be used by the self-same groups in their political struggles and advocacy efforts at local, national and international levels.   http://www.fian.org/news/article/detail/using-the-global-strategic-framework-for-food-security-and-nutrition-to-promote-and-defend-the-peopl/ http://www.fian.org/news/article/detail/right-to-food-journal-vol-8-no-1/ http://www.fian.org/news/article/detail/statement-on-rural-womens-right-to-adequate-food-and-nutrition/ http://www.fian.org/news/newslist/ Visit the related web page
	Do we need another Rolls-Royce Showroom? by Sam Pizzigati   October 2013   A tiny tax on global personal wealth over $1 million could ensure that no child anywhere on the planet has to live in extreme poverty.   The folks at Rolls-Royce have just opened a brand-new dealership — in the poverty-stricken Philippines.   This nation of nearly 100 million people now hosts 334 deep pockets worth at least $50 million, more than enough, the Rolls-Royce CEO noted earlier this month in Manila, to guarantee a robust market “for the ultimate in super luxury.”   One stab at that ultimate, the Rolls Ghost model, will retail to Filipinos of means at $602,000 to start. That’s over $600,000 more than the $1,879 personal net worth of the median, or most typical, Filipino adult.   In the Philippines today, says the just-released Global Wealth Report 2013 from the Credit Suisse Research Institute in Switzerland, 88 percent of adults have less than $10,000 to their name. Just 0.9 percent have over $100,000.   In our deeply unequal world, maldistributions of wealth this stark have become almost standard economic operating procedure.   The new data from the Swiss banking giant Credit Suisse put the world’s total personal wealth, as of this past June, at $241 trillion, an all-time record. The world’s richest 1 percent currently hold 46 percent of global assets. The poorest half of global adults hold less than 1 percent.   What do these numbers mean, in the daily lives people actually lead? A new World Bank report just out, The State of the Poor, offers some hints.   About 1.2 billion people in the world today live on less than $1.25 a day, a state of affairs that researchers define as “extreme poverty.” Only 26 percent of these extremely poor have access to clean water, only 49 percent access to electricity.   The good news? Things used to be worse. The number of people worldwide living in extreme poverty has actually dropped by 721 million since 1981.   But most of the gains for the world’s poorest have come in China and, to a much lesser degree, India. Throughout the rest of developing world, says the World Bank, “individuals living in extreme poverty today appear to be as poor as those living in extreme poverty 30 years ago.”   The World Bank has set a goal for ending this extreme poverty — by the year 2030. Need the world wait that long?   Actually, no, as World Bank analysts readily acknowledge in their new study. The investment needed to bring everyone in the world now living on less than $1.25 a day up out of extreme poverty turns out to be surprisingly modest.   “If we had a magic wand and could perfectly target every extremely poor individual,” World Bank researchers note, the world would need “approximately $169 billion per year” to end extreme poverty.   That sum, the World Bank points out, equals about 0.5 percent of the Gross Domestic Product of the world’s developing nations.   But the numbers in the new Credit Suisse Global Wealth Report suggest a more politically daring perspective.   In the world today, the 32 million adults worth over $1 million collectively hold $98.7 trillion in personal wealth. These affluents make up 0.7 percent of the world’s adult population and hold 41 percent of the world’s wealth.   A graduated wealth tax that averaged 0.5 percent on all personal wealth over $1 million would raise about $500 billion annually, nearly triple the $169 billion needed to lift every soul on the planet out of extreme poverty.   The analysts at Credit Suisse don’t raise this tax-the-rich option. They observe only that “the world economy remains conducive to the acquisition and preservation of large and medium-sized fortunes.”   That may be a bit of an understatement. In the last year alone, the number of global million-dollar fortunes has jumped by 6.1 percent. The number of “ultra high net worth” fortunes — over $50 million — has jumped by over 10 percent.   Nearly 100,000 people worldwide, 98,663 to be exact, now enjoy this over $50-million “ultra high net worth” status.   A reality Rolls-Royce dealers everywhere are no doubt gleefully applauding.   http://otherwords.org/minimum-can-fight-inequality/ http://otherwords.org/another_side_of_inequality/ http://toomuchonline.org/ http://inequality.org/ http://www.motherjones.com/topics/income-inequality Visit the related web page
	View more stories