Impact of FTAs on Agriculture: Issues in Food Security and Livelihood

Sajin PrachasonSustainable Agriculture Foundation (Thailand)

/ FTA Watch

Asian Regional Workshop on Free Trade Agreements: Towards inclusive trade policies in post-crisis Asia”

9 December 2009

Agriculture is multifunctional.(photo: Sustainable Agriculture Foundation (Thailand) Source of livelihood (of the vast majority in developing countries)

Source of food security

Social safety net

Linked to biodiversity, natural resources, local knowledge and cultures

How FTAs affect livelihood and food security? :

Experiences from Thailand

AdjustmentFood supply

Food price

Small-scaled agriculture

Agriculture production

Business, profits, etc.

Resource base- seeds, water, land, forest, etc.

Corporate agriculture

Value, way of life, culture,

social relations, income, etc.

Bargaining power

Market entry

1. Tariff reduction/ elimination

2.Investment liberalization

4. SPS

Adjustment

Agriculture market

3.IPR

1) Tariff reduction/ elimination disrupts farmers’ domestic markets and do not yield the export promise.

(photo: Sustainable Agriculture Foundation (Thailand)

2) Intellectual property rights, investment liberalization and protection together can intensify monopoly of natural resource and discriminate against small farmers

3) Safeguard measures are inefficient to protect farmers

- To invoke the mechanism, they required producer(s) with major proportion of the production to write to the authority

- Thailand as a member of the WTO has invoked anti-dumping measures over 40 product items but never used safeguard measures at all during

Farmers in 3 provinces called for 1. delay in garlic import during Sep-Dec 2007.

(10 September 2007)

2. Stop garlic import from non-FTA countries.

The provincial authority asked the border to strictly monitored garlic import and prevent illegal import.

(26 November 2007)

Related authorities will mitigate farmers’ problemsby providing assistance through cooperative channels.

(26 November 2007)

4) Food safety measures to protect consumers are inadequate.

- Focusing more on export side but inadequate measures and capacity to protect domestic consumers.

- WTO’s Agreement on Applications of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures increase risks of GMO import

5) Adjustment to free trade does not simply happen and farmers are pushed to join contract farming.

- adjustment means to continue growing the same crops

- adjustment means to join government programs or companies in contract farming, of which farmers are usually put in a disadvantageous position.

-END-Thank you.