“The WTO and its so-called free trade destroyed our country’s food self-sufficiency and food security.”
By RONALYN V. OLEA
Bulatlat.com
MANILA – Members of the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) do not welcome the visit of an official from the World Trade Organization (WTO) in the Philippines.
WTO Director General Roberto Azevedo is set to attend meetings with high-level government representatives today. On May 23, the WTO chief will attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation’s (APEC) Minister Responsible for Trade (MRT) meeting in Boracay.
In a protest in front of the Department of Agriculture this morning, May 21, the farmers blamed the WTO for their further impoverishment.
Antonio Flores, KMP secretary general said that since the Philippines became a member of the WTO, the government implemented the full-scale liberalization and deregulation in agriculture that “led to the massive flooding of imported food and other agricultural products in the country.”
WTO’s Agreement on Agriculture (AoA) paved the way for full-scale liberalization and removed all protectionist economic measures in various sectors of the Philippine economy primarily in agriculture.
The liberalization in agriculture meant lowering of tariff or taxes imposed on imported agricultural products. By 1996, in compliance with the WTO, the tariff was pegged at 9.7 percent then down to 7.8 percent in 2006 and 6.1 percent in 2011.
The Philippines, an agricultural country, has become one of the biggest rice importers. Data from the Bureau of Agricultural Statistics showed that in 1994, before the Philippines entered the WTO, only four percent of the rice supply was imported, but in 2010, imported rice accounted for 19 percent of the supply.
Last year, an estimated 2.85 million metric tons of rice was imported by the Philippine government resulting in the steep drop in prices of locally produced rice, Flores said. The average price of palay (unhusked rice) is now pegged at P14 ($0.31) per kilogram.
“The WTO and its so-called free trade destroyed our country’s food self-sufficiency and food security,” Flores said.
According to independent think tank Ibon Foundation, from 1994 to 2010, food insecurity increased 11 times. In 1994, agricultural trade deficit was $287 million and in 2010, it rose to $3.3 billion.
Over the years, the agriculture’s share in the economy shrank significantly. Data from the National Statistical Coordination Board show that from around 18 percent-share of agriculture in the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) in the early 1990s, it fell to only 9.6 percent in the third quarter of 2014.
The KMP said that in the first five years of implementation of WTO from 1994 to 1999, more than 900,000 jobs were lost in agriculture alone.
The WTO chieftain, according to the KMP, is set to ensure that the complete eradication of protectionism and the removal of all barriers to trade liberalization. Flores said that “Azevedo’s attendance in the APEC meetings clearly demonstrates that trade talks within the US-dominated APEC are all in accord with the full-scale neoliberal trade agenda.” 
