Stop corporate takeover of agriculture, food security advocates say

The private sector’s increasing role in agriculture will lead to greater food insecurity, a network of advocacy groups said on Thursday. The Asia Pacific Network for Food Sovereignty was prompted to make this statement after Asian Development Bank president Haruhiko Kuroda called to “harness our collective resources in order to achieve food security." Kuroda made this declaration during the three-day “Investment Forum for Food Security in Asia and the Pacific" that ended on Friday at the ADB headquarters in Manila. The Forum, organized by ADB, United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization and International Funding for Agricultural Development, supposedly aims to “encourage greater collaboration and partnership in investments in food security among governments, the private sector, international development agencies, civil society organizations and research institutions." But APNFS Convenor Arze Glipo said Kuroda’s “collective resources" actually means the private sector taking over public goods and services. “It is a shame that ADB and other international institutions continue to peddle privatization or public-private partnership in agriculture when the same model has contributed to food crisis in many poor countries," Glipo said in a statement. "It is unfortunate that many national governments, including the Philippines, followed this policy imposition from ADB and other international financial institutions." Val Vibal of the Aniban ng Manggagawa sa Agrikultura (AMA, or Union of Agricultural Workers) said that ADB’s Grain Sector Development Program has contributed to the Philippines’ worsening rice insecurity by weakening the National Food Authority (NFA) through streamlining of its bureaucracy and budget cuts and then allowing the private sector to assume some of the agency’s functions such as rice importation and warehousing. “This move further weakened the capacity of NFA, while strengthening control of private traders, not only in rice, but corn, sugar and other commodities," he stressed. Golda Hilario of Southeast Asia Initiative for Community Empowerment (SEARICE) added that the same program also privatized the rice seed sector in the country which only benefited big agri-business companies such as Bayer, Bioseed, SL Agritech. “ADB's support for technical cooperation to the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) center like the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) through the Hybrid Rice Consortium with national agriculture research centers facilitated the promotion of hybrid rice in the Philippines which, in the long-run, was used for corruption and rent-seeking activities of private seed corporations," she said. "Only handful private companies such as SL Agritech, Bayer benefited while farmers complain of poor performance and disease outbreaks from the use of hybrid seeds every cropping season. Farmers also complain of becoming dependent on seed companies and government subsidies every cropping season for seeds. Is this the private-public partnership that would address food security?" she added. APNFS’ Glipo said that ADB and World Bank’s push to promote public-private partnership in irrigation through the Irrigation Management Transfer will also pave the way for the eventual privatization of the operations of irrigation facilities in the country. APNFS said that the increasing role of private companies has increased the monopoly over resources that should be held in common such as water and seeds, increased the prices of services such as irrigation, increased rice prices while decreasing farmers’ incomes. APNFS said that in order to help solve the recurring food crisis, privatization must be immediately stopped and national governments must assume greater role in providing services for small farmers. - RJAB Jr., GMANews.TV