This story
was taken from Bulatlat, the Philippines's alternative weekly
newsmagazine (www.bulatlat.com, www.bulatlat.net, www.bulatlat.org).
Vol. VII, No. 10, April 15-21, 2007
Asian Farmers,
Scientists Hit Agrochemical TNCs’ Control on Rice
Landlessness experienced by
millions of farmers in Asia is worsened by liberalization dictated by the WTO
and the monopoly of agrochemical TNCs over rice production.
BY ABNER BOLOS MUÑOZ, NUEVA ECIJA –
Feliciano Gazpar, 50, a farmer in Barangay Bibiclat, Aliaga, Nueva Ecija, owns a
one-hectare rice land but because he has no money to buy enough commercial farm
inputs, he cultivates only about a quarter of his plot this year. “Gusto ko mang tamnan ng
palay ang lupa namin wala akong magagawa, wala naman akong mailalagay na pataba
at gamot. Malulubog lang lalo kami sa utang.”
(I cannot plant rice to all of my land even if I
wanted to. I can’t afford to buy fertilizers and pesticides. We will only be
more indebted), Gazpar said. High farm inputs have
burdened rice farmers in Central Luzon, the country’s biggest rice-producing
region, since 1960 when the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) was
established. IRRI has been criticized by
concerned farmers and scientists worldwide for introducing high yielding rice
varieties (HYVs) that require expensive farm inputs produced by giant
agrochemical corporations. WORA 2007 Last April 3, Gazpar along
with about 100 members of the Alyansa ng mga Magbubukid sa Gitnang Luzon (AMGL,
Central Luzon Peasant Alliance) held a picket in front of the Philippine Rice
Research Institute (PhilRice) office in Munoz, Nueva Ecija to protest the
government and agrochemical firms’ “collusion” to propagate
genetically-engineered (GE) rice and denounce the disappearance of traditional
rice varieties. PhilRice is IRRI’s research
and marketing arm based in Central Luzon. The protest was part of a week-long
activity by farmers in Asia called “Week of Rice Action 2007” (WORA 2007) to
“protect rice culture and resist agrochemical transnational corporations.” Gazpar said he had to
borrow money to buy three bags of Urea fertilizer costing P950 ($19.83, based on
an exchange rate of P47.905 per US dollar) each and a one-liter bottle of
pesticide costing almost P1,000 ($20.87) for the 2,500-square meter parcel where
he planted rice. He planted vegetables in the rest of his farm. After paying his debts at
an interest rate of one cavan (50 kg. sack worth about P500 or $10.44) of palay
[unhusked rice] per P1,000 ($20.87) borrowed and deducting other expenses, he
estimates that he will be left with about a month’s supply of rice for food as
his net income. “Dagdagan ko man ang
itatanim ko pareho rin ang mangyayari. Wala ring matitira sa amin. Yan ang
ginawa ng mga ahensyang iyan” (Even if I planted more, the same thing will
happen. Nothing will be left for my family. That is what these agencies did to
us). Gazpar said. Debunking
government’s claim that HYVs improved the lot of farmers, AMGL Chair Joseph
Canlas explained that while it is true that the average palay yield per hectare
has grown, the cost of fertilizer, pesticides and other farm inputs has risen
from 30 percent to 40 percent of the total production cost per hectare. Shrinking
land Gazpar is a recipient of a
certificate of land ownership award (CLOA) under the government’s land reform
program. But he has been unable to pay amortization fees and is in danger of
losing his land. He laments that the
government originally valued his land at P9,000 ($187.87). However, after a
re-evaluation, he is now being asked to pay amortization fees worth P100,000
($2,087.46) which he cannot earn from farming given the high cost of production.
The National Irrigation Administration (NIA) also requires him to pay P1,700
($35.49) yearly in irrigation fees. Many farmers in his village
have lost their farms to money lenders and big landowners or their CLOAs and
emancipation patents have been either revoked or cancelled because of
prohibitive production costs, he said. AMGL records show that farms in Central
Luzon which measure 1.5 hectares tend to shrink to 0.5 hectares and even less.
“Due to
unabated land use conversion and ejectment of farmers from the land they till
the total hectarage planted to rice in the region has shrunk to only 449,941
hectares from 678,532 hectares in 1985. In the process, traditional rice
varieties that do not need expensive farm inputs have also been virtually wiped
out,” Canlas said.
IRRI Since IRRI
was established in Los Baños, Laguna on April 4, 1960, governments in the Asian
region have been encouraging their farmers to use HYVs produced from IRRI
research. With funding from the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations, IRRI initiated
the Green Revolution in 1966 to “boost rice productivity and modernize Asian
agriculture.” Through the
use of HYVs, rice production in Asia doubled from 270 million tons in 1966 to
600 million tons in 2000, but poverty and landlessness also worsened during the
period, according to a fact sheet from the Pesticide Action Network-Asia and the
Pacific (PAN AP). It added that
aside from high production cost that negated the high yields, HYVs also brought
serious problems such as soil degradation, curtailment of farmers’ rights to use
and re-use seeds and toxic traits in some genetically engineered rice varieties,
among others. PAN AP, along
with the Kilusang Magbubukid sa Pilipinas (KMP, Philippine Peasant Alliance),
Resistance and Solidarity Against Agrochemical Transnational Corporations
(RESIST) and the Asian Peasant Coalition declared March 29 to April 4 this year,
a Week of Rice Action 2007. WORA 2007 activities were
held in India and in the Philippines where the IRRI was founded 47 years ago. Rice bowl Asia is the rice bowl of
the world. Rice is the region’s staple food and is planted in some 134.5 million
hectares in China, India, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, Japan,
Myanmar and the Philippines. More than 2.5 billion people in Asia consume about
97 percent of rice produced in the region. The livelihood of 70
percent of the people in Asia depends on rice production. The staple has been
part of the rich culture and tradition of Asia as early as when it was first
cultivated some 7,000 years ago. Local and traditional rice
varieties numbering about 140,000 have sustained Asian rice farmers and
consumers for centuries. But the number dwindled drastically in the last four
decades when HYVs were introduced by IRRI. Critics of IRRI said that
the latter has destroyed indigenous rice production and brought millions of
farmers into bankruptcy while bringing gargantuan profits to giant agrochemical
firms like Monsanto, Bayer and Syngenta. Fields of
agony Ujjian Halim, in a
monograph titled “Rice Lands: Fields of Agony and Fields of Hope,” said that the
liberalization of the rice industry started with the founding of the World Trade
Organization (WTO) in 1995, which along with the Asean Free Trade Agreement (AFTA)
resulted in opening up of rice markets that led, in turn, to the disempowerment
of rice farmers. Asia became the biggest
dumping ground of cheaply-produced rice, mainly from the US. Asian rice imports
rose 300 percent (i.e., 4.8 million tons to 15.4 million tons) from 1990 to 1998
when the WTO Agreement on Agriculture (AoA) gained headway. From being a major rice
exporter, the Philippines became dependent on rice importation, reaching a peak
in 1998 when 2.2 million tons was imported. Today, the country is Asia’s top
rice importer with imports averaging 600,000 million tons each year. In Taiwan, WTO agreements
resulted in a shift towards production of “guaranteed price crops” that reduced
the acreage of rice production from 364,000 acres in 1997 to 272,000 acres in
2003. In southern India, hundreds
of farmers who were forced to shift from rice to cotton farming became
highly-indebted to agri-business companies and committed suicide after bad
harvests of cotton. Indonesian farmers have
lost about 60,000 hectares of rice lands each year while about 10,000 hectares
of rice land in the Philippines was converted to other uses. “The rate of degradation of
rice lands (due to HYV farming) has gone up in Asia, making rice farming
unprofitable and costly. Despite the growth in rice production, 800 million
people go hungry in Asia,” Halim wrote. Seed
control The evolution of HYV
technology into the most modern genetically engineered rice varieties also
tightened the grip of the agrochemical giants over seeds, the key element in
rice production. The founding of the WTO in 1995 also resulted in the signing by
member-countries of the agreement on Trade Related Aspects of International
Property Rights (TRIPS) in the same year. TRIPS violates the rights
of farmers and indigenous peoples to save, conserve, exchange and develop
genetic resources and preserve traditional rice knowledge, AnakPawis (Toiling
Masses) Rep. Rafael Mariano said in a paper read in a farmers’ conference in
October 2005 in Quezon City. TRIPS gives corporations
the right to own rice varieties and genes through patents. Dr. Angelina Briones, board
member of the Magsasaka at Siyentipiko para sa Pag-unlad ng Agrikultura (Farmers
and Scientists for the Development of Agriculture), said that more than 900 rice
genes have already been patented by giant agrochemical corporations. Fifty-six percent of 609
rice genes compiled in 2000 were owned by companies like Dupont and Mitsui of
Japan, while Syngenta is claiming to have invented 30,000 gene sequences of
rice, Briones said in a paper read during the conference. “The patent system is
clearly a misappropriation of nature’s regeneration processes and the
innovations of farmers over centuries. This is robbery in broad daylight of our
common genetic wealth.” Land
Ownership as Major Issue Farmers in Asia said that
land ownership remains a major issue for them. Canlas said that while
foreign agribusiness contributes to the displacement of farmers, resolving
solely the problem of seed monopoly by agrochemical firms will not completely
solve the misery of farmers. “Landlessness experienced by millions of farmers in
Asia is worsened by liberalization dictated by the WTO and the monopoly of
agrochemical TNCs over rice production. We should fight the multinationals but
we can do this more realistically by fighting to own the land we till. Only
through genuine agrarian reform can we hope to achieve sustainable
agriculture.” GLNS/Posted by Bulatlat © 2007 Bulatlat
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Gitnang Luzon News Service
Posted by Bulatlat