After a revolutionary song initiated by Peasants from South India, the anchor G. Narender Nath proposed to carry forward the discussions and dialogues of the past three days on combating globalisation to the survival of peasants globally.

G. Narender Nath: Today this is a follow up meeting of the past 3 days on the question of survival of Peasants in the era of globalisation. The stress is on how to combat globalisation from the local to global. Especially the real poor small peasants, agriculture workers and artisans in the rural areas.

What kind of action programme we can take? We do not want to go to make lengthily speeches. We have some very important and learned people with us. We request them to initiate the discussion. I invite Prof. Suneet Chopra to kindly occupy the desk. I also request Prof. K. R. Chaudhary of A.P. to kindly occupy the desk. I also invite Ms. Hilkka Piettla, Vasudaiva Kutumbakam, Finland to come and occupy the seat. I request our veteran Kissan and organic worker Sandipan Badgire to kindly occupy the seat. We are inviting all these people on dias, because we feel that alternatives are going to be discussed and sorted out. The alternative will start from organic farming and not chemical farming. This is our thinking. Now I invite Kumar Syal? to briefly introduce Comrade Suneet Chopra.

Kumar: Comrade Suneet Chopra is the Joint Secretary of All India Agricultural Worker Union (AIAWU). He has devoted his entire life in support of landless labours and peasants. Otherwise he is an artist and also a critique.

Suneet Chopra: "Friends, I shall be fairly brief. I shall put forward some issues. The first thing is that we should understand that what is happening in agriculture today is not something new which has never happened before. There are three focal points that Karl Marx noted 150 years ago in the development of capitalism. We find all three flowing today in a very fast speed and in an unequal manner. These are not new but we find these are three hurdles in people's agriculture way of life. The first development is that the small owner under the capitalism production is disposed and there is an increase in the proletariat space. The Point, I wish to make here is a kind of mental block in people to think that as soon we use the word proletariat "it is almost used or understood as an employed worker. The reality of capitalism that it does not give jobs to all. It snatches the small surplus and pushes them to the vast ocean of unemployed for its own use.

Today we find in the field of agriculture a large number of people entering. The Army of unemployed and landless in agriculture India alone from 1991 to 2001 has risen from 74 million to 107 million. Agriculture does not allow quick profits. Because it is a cyclic process based on Geography, Botany and Biology. Capitalist intervention in agricultural does not mean ‘capitalist agriculture’. The capitalist enter into certain aspects of agriculture where quick profits can be accumulated. Secondly the capitalist will not take our lands but will shift his focus on selected profitable sector and leave the losses for us. He is not happy with village population. He will prefer migrated urban factory labours without families. He does not want to disturb the community based in village. He actually wants labour to come from outside, work in fields and leave to come back next day. Thirdly land values are more static than industrial development. So he will never invest in agricultural land. Then what does, he do? He practises what I call ‘selective squeeze’ in agricultural production. Just as in agro life you do not have to squeeze or press the whole cow for milk. Similarly capitalism steals all the milk and leaves the calf empty stomach to die. He goes into the seed industry. Genetically engineered seed and biotechnology, which are not essential for peasants but are essential to make big profits. Some of these techniques have proved to be dangerous for the very survival of agriculture. For e.g. genetically engineered potatoes according to Percy Schmeizer, the potatoes supplied for Uncle Chips have damaged the kidneys of the tested field rats. But Uncle Chips do sell to build profits. So the capitalist enters the seed trade. Then the capitalist enters the Chemical factories. It is a common sense that human junk of urban areas could easily get transformed into organic fertiliser for rural use but they choose to delink this ecological cycle by manufacturing chemical pesticides and fertiliser for rural use thus leaving the urban area dirty. This again in the name of development of minority capitalism. Division between the town and the village. Division between the needs of Chemical companies and the needs of agriculture. Agriculture never needs such huge amount of chemical fertilizers. But for profits you are systematically trapped to purchase such chemicals. Chemicals are such that in many cases you cannot use that field for any other rotation crop. For e.g. It kills grass and you cannot rotate cotton. It throws dependents out of job, brings in pesticides for only making money. This does not mean that peasants cannot manufacture their own pesticides and co-operatives for seed. But the moment profit enters this space, only branded pesticides and branded seeds will be available. Huge profits at the cost of farmers is the target.

Then there is the question of mechanisation. People say when you fight mechanisation, you fight science. Science for whom? Is science for people? Science is only for big business houses. One combined harvester takes away the jobs of 10 villages as worked out by us. Under the new economic policies, the govt. of India has removed duties from all combined harvesters. Bank offer loans of 15 lacs for one combined harvester and people who earn Rs. 40/day cannot eat. Now tell me who is the harvest for? Harvesting for people or harvesting for profit? In Pondichery we fought out to stop the combined harvesting from taking over.

Where else is money! In transportation. The transporters kitty in one stroke earns the cream by purchasing wheat at Rs. 430/quintal and selling it of in open market. The government controlled ration shop sells it at Rs. 690/ quintal. This is the development of the capitalism that profit of farmer is transferred to the transporters and whole-sellers. Our government declares that we cannot give support and subsidy to farmers. Last year there was six crore tonnes of grain in ration shops. This year it is only two crores tonnes. Where has four crore tonne vanished? Instead of subsidies to farmers, the support and subsidy is for transporters, whole sellers, importers and exporters. The grain meant for pig in America is been sold at Rs. 4.30/kg. And we in India for our people get it at Rs. 6.90/kg. The plan is clear. Support the big man and eliminate the smaller and smallest.

How much is 100g. pack of corn flex cost? Rs.15/- and we are forced to sell wheat at Rs. 4.30/kg without any subsidy. In the name of this fraud called value addition the farmer is looted. I wish to quote the status of U.S. farmer. Like Indian farmer he is also exploited and is on the receiving end. In U.S. a farmer having 4000 acres of land only exists. A comrade from Finland also pointed out that only rich farmers and big agarian are getting subsidies and not the smaller ones. The smaller ones are systematically finished in the name of market principles. This is fraud and not a market principle.

Now I would like to give the figures of an American study. A farmer gets only 10% of the value of his crops. 26% goes to transportation and storage. 64% is spent on seeds, fertilisers, machinery and processing. In short an American peasant if produces Rs. 100/- he receives only Rs. 10/-. Here the capitalist systematically squeezes the milk out of a cow. So we need to smash the capitalism and replace it.

Here back in India a recent agricultural study by Punjab University, Patiala reveals that two hectares of land of approx. Rs. 30,000 to 35,000/ month agriculture-value fetches only Rs.248/ month. This is done not in accordance with some defined laws of the market. They say there is no alternative. However there is definitely an alternative to fraud, to loot, to threat. I would like to point out the frauds. Oxfam has written a book on Unequal Trade describing the methodology of fraud in detail. Even the laws designed in W,T.O. are favour of few rich against majority poor. In advanced Countries, big farmers get 33% to 90% plus subsidy. Here big farmers unlike in India have huge farms. In India 60% farmers have below 1 hecter of land. Percy Schmeizer a Canadian farmer having 20,000 acres of land had to pay 1,20,000 dollars to Montanso Multi-national. He lost the battle as you all know. Even this rich farmer could not fought alone a losing battle.

Therefore peasants of the country and the peasants of the World must unite and fight for their survival. The laws operating today on you and us in agriculture industry are clearly the law of capitalism as pointed out by Karl Mass in two documents, ‘Wage, Labour & Capitalism’ and also in ‘Communist Manifesto’. The U.S. & E.U. peasants of course the rich ones have subsidies in slots of Blue Box, Green Box and Yellow Box. At Cancun they stated that these subsidies will never reduce. So we must understand that W.T.O. is not any scientific organisation but an organisation to make money. The laws of W.T.O. do not apply to us. Our government. May agree to them, but we need to resist them as did by peasants in Cancun. They are unequal laws, incorrect laws. They are laws to doom ruin and not for Development.

Now, I will take two more issues i.e. debt and mechanisation. When I am sowing the field, mechanisations like the plough, bulls etc. should support rather than take away or steal my routine job and bread butter. Mechanisation of big engineering companies are not suitable for small majority farmers. This will make the peasant a prisoner of his own field. There 160 million unemployed army of human-beings in India. These people could have fetched employment. In 1992, a commission was set up by them P.M. Narshima Rao and Mamta Banerjee was also in that commission. It said that 94 million will need jobs by 2002. If we gave 94 lacs, (94,000) jobs every year, then in next 10 years we can handle this problem. Our growing rate is increased from 5% to 7% but unemployed has risen from 5.6% to 7%. Why this mis-match. Only because throwing people out of employment is an essential in-build component of capitalism. Still some employment could have been generated but this Indian government & its 36 ministries had been going all out to throw out 8,65,000 workers, railway alone 7,00,000 people. Today each railwaymen is doing a job of four individuals. The net result is to total accidents are 1,327 in three years with casualties higher than Kargil War at the cost of profit.

They say do something. Increase profits. Even if people have to die. 60% jobs P&T will be lost. 70% in Geogical Survey of India are in process of losing. This brings us face to face with the third focal point of Karl Marx. Here Karl. Marx had pointed out that women and children will replace men-labour. I can give you some figures. According to a recent book of Dr. Alag, “Liberation and labour, there is 37% of increase in women labour. This means peasant labour are thrown out. Men & Women are forced to fight for shrinking job space. When women labour comes in, it comes in as casual labour. This is happening in industries of over thousand people. So it is not a question of a small or smaller industry but it is clear as Karl Mass said more expensive and better skilled labour will be reduced and replaced by less expensive. Cheaper labour will be used in the name of outsourcing. “This is not an economic necessity but a survival tactic by the ruling capitalist class. In such a situation the survival of capitalist class will become a threat to the society.” If production increases it should reach everybody. But here production is only for profit. Profit is there also at the cost of mass inhuman destruction in shape of atom bomb.

Now I wish to end touching my last point briefly. What do the capitalist do with the vast army of unemployed? How do this system handle this situation. By dividing and putting them against each other as happened in Gujarat. Many thousands Rabari Hindu workers approx 20,000 were engaged in Gujarat. They lost their jobs during recent riots when factories were burned down RSS. They came to Udaipur in Rajasthan. Here local RSS told them to loot the Muslims and burn their shops. Our union intervened and opposed this frenzy. We started free food kitchen for Rabaries. We said we will give you free food but do not indulge in shifting the wrongs of RSS done to your factories here to innocent fellow muslim workers. We succeeded to stop the anticipated riot by sheer organisational work and correct stand.

Now I have to say that it had been very easy, if we had to only stand together and fight against imperialism. It had been easily to give a call to integrate all Indians against one king or queen. After all we had defeated British during the height of its domination. This is not a question of imperialism alone. We have to uproot capitalists in our country also and establish a new system based on socialism.

It is not a coincidence that instead of 2003 it was in 2001 our B.J.P. govt. in India unilaterally opened our Agro-market for U.S. based M.N.Cs. Result of that you know. Suicides, sale of land, destruction of our economy, destruction of our cash crops as you are aware. Our own government could have waited till 2003. Therefore Atal Bihari Vajpaee extends wheat for America meant for American Pigs at Rs. 4.30/kg and to us the same wheat is available only at Rs. 6.90/kg. The ration system here also is systematically been destroyed. Therefore I wish to conclude that we will not survive if we allow the capitalist forces to sell their interest as market interest or our interest. So to finish capitalist economy it is not necessary to combat imperialism alone. So the slogan to finish imperialism is not enough and complete. Ultimately capitalism has to be replaced by socialist alternative for our own survival.

Thank you.

G. Narender Nath: Com. Suneet Chopra has dwelt in detail the impact of globalisation on survival of peasants. Now we have one and a half hour. I would request other speakers to be brief. Our intention today is to evolve concrete suggestions to combat imperialism locally and globally. Now I request Sandipan Badgire who is an organic farmer, to discuss in ten minutes his experiences, so that a correct direction and spirit to this brainstorming can be evolved.

Sandeep: Since last eleven years, I am engaged in organic farming in Latur District, Maharasthra, India. Since last three years, we have been promoting organic farmer among fellow peasants. Now the emerging evil effects of chemical farmer are forcing farmer to reach us for guidance and support. Organic farming is the only solution. I have written in Hindi in this leaflet. It is also circulated in English. I read:

Organic & Natural farming is must for survival amidst competition from Multinationals and their farmers.

In order to feed growing human population post independent Indian Political infrastructure took me the design for adopting Green Revolution. The farmers were guided to adopt modern technology hybrid seeds, chemical fertilizers, chemical pesticides and mechanisation for bumper yields. Multinational companies sponsored propaganda bewildered the innocent farmer to purchase the costly inputs so as to rep rich harvests. Inputs of Green revolution with huge costs with huge yields blinded the innocent farmer who were producing enough food grain with minimum inputs purchased from outside. Green revaluation robed the wealth of farmers as well as health of soil.

Productivity of soil started declining with resultant decline in production in spite of increased inputs provided for Green revolution. To compensate decline in food production additional land was obtained by deforestation. This step has disturbed ecological balance resulting in loss of biodiversity of plant and other micro - micro fauna. Huge tracts of fertile soil started eroding leading desertification. The quality of food produced from green revolution inputs directly effects both human and animal fauna and vegetative cover as whole. The Green revolution was restricted to irrigated class & 90% dry land farming not afford farming. Dry land farmer were facing economical compulsions like & selling the land and debt and migrating to urban area.

India has accepted General Agreement on Trade & Tariff (GATT). Many multinational collaboration entered in large scale agricultural production taking production taking advantage of relaxation of land holding act. Relaxation of land holding act enabled the Multinational & Big Business to acquire huge tract of land and thus the era of contract farming as labour on his own land or are migrating to urban area in search of job. The food trade is also being acquired by the multinational. Now the multinational will have full control on food production and marketing which will empower them to exploit the consumer, small and marginal farmer and agricultural labours, in collaboration with politicians. In order to save ourselves from the world trade organisation and GATT following steps are imperative.

1) The farmer will have to adopt least input sustainable agriculture such as organic or natural farming.

2) Food processing small scale industries will have to be established in rural area.

3) Farmer will have to organise processing of product, marketing of products as well as purchasing & ceiling raw material without middleman.

4) To face GATT related problems we have to organize small groups, co-operatives institute to support Producer & Consumer farmer.

Organic natural farming principal in Brief -

Utilisation of natural resources. Such as soil, Air, Water, Vegetative cover, energy of sun, under ground energy with the frame work of natural laws in sustainable manner.

Cost of least production of food energy for human and animal consumption can be afforded by poor farmer. This quality food if processed in rural area will help in wiping out unemployment and will give real value to farmers products and quality food to consumers with least cost and also check migration in urban area.

Under GATT the heavy subsidy given by U.S.A., Canada and other countries for export of agricultural produce to developing countries will jeopardise the survival of Indian farmers. We can counteract this by adopting organic - natural farming on long term, if we follow this process our soils will produces sustainable production with improved quality at a least cost.

This was followed by presentation in Hindi by Vijay Javandhiah

HILKKA PIETILA, Vasudaiva Kutumbakam, Finland: I thank you all and thank the organisers of this forum, that I have the opportunity to hear and to learn so much as I have learned for instance just this month. I come from the country called Finland; so far in North - Europe. There we have very special circumstances for agriculture because our country has only 3-4 months cultivation. We can make cultivation in the first five month of the year and in the with ninth month it is almost covered by Ice. So you can understand that in that kind of country agriculture cannot compete with any other country. So that is one example of how agriculture problem is different for different countries. But in all countries agriculture depends upon nature. On the pre - potential in nature and it is not like any industrial production which is done in a factory and it does not matter if it rains or sunshine outside and while the problems of self - use in saving agriculture are such that the whole economic thinking or economic policies of the growers based on Industrial economy. They do not recognise that cultivation economy is totally different and cultivation has very different pre - requisites. It has very different laws. They are the laws of nature not the man-made laws as made in W.T.O.I have understood that the Urgaray Round already made about ten years ago, seem to have made an agreement which prevents many countries to profit and liberalise agriculture according to laws of that country. I had been thinking that these Urgaray round agreement is man - made agreement. It is made by governments. It is not in accordance with laws of nature. So it can be changed by government also. The other thing now is W.T.O. process, which is dealing with World Trade including agricultural trade. As I said agriculture is produced in complete different circumstances than the industrial product. So they cannot compete. They cannot be dealt in same way. The govt. representatives and capitalist representatives have too much power in W.T.O.. They are supported not to have but they have too much power in W.T.O. They have only business thinking. They do not care about the laws of nature. So that is why there has been a long discussion in people's movement for survival years to take agriculture out of this W.T.O. It must taken out of the hands of W.T.O. I was in meeting in Seattle in 1999, where huge demonstration took place. There were some 50,000 people demonstrating against W.T.O. All these demonstration and the developing countries govt. are working together and the civil society manifestations also encourage developing country govt. to take stronger stand. There we managed to nullify, to destroy the meeting so that it could take no result. But it was just only a postponement. Not a lasting result of anything. So W.T.O. process is still going on. Now the movement is claiming that agriculture should be taken away from W.T.O. But very literate ideas have proposed that where we should then discuss agriculture based problems. My conviction is that agricultural trade has to be regulated. It cannot be liberated because liberation does not fit. As I said in the beginning we cannot compete. The agriculture cannot altercate on the basis of competition. As my country cannot compete with several European countries. In India you have different problems but agriculture is as much dependent on nature here as it is in Finland. So I propose that whole negotiation process in agriculture trade should be removed from W.T.O. and other forums established in U.N. As many of you know in U.N. there are already three different organisations dealing with agriculture. Food & Agriculture Organisation, International Fund for Agriculture Development and World Food Plan. These organisations know agriculture, they know how agriculture operates, they know the substance. But they have no mandate to intervene in trade. Trade which is discussed in W.T.O. It is mad. It is crazy. Therefore I think as people's movement, as movement for agriculture, we should demand our governments to discard, to change the system in U.N. They should put together these 3 organisations of agriculture with a new and more mandate for a new kind of organisations with a mandate for also to intervene in trade as well. It could have all issues of agriculture i.e. the resource, the development, the trade and the future and the distribution. This moment we know that there are 800 million people starving each day. So this kind of situations should not be allowed by this new organisation. So I propose to start work in this new organisation, self-introspection has to be made in products of agriculture. Because agriculture produces different things not only food. But food is the main thing. Food is the necessity. Food is the basic need for everybody. So food products and necessities have to handled in trade in different way. As not commodities but as utilities of all people in this world.

So therefore they need a complete different handling. Then agriculture is producing also raw areas. Lot of industries are dependent on agricultural materials for industry & construction. Like timber, cotton, wool, rubber, jute, hides etc. Therefore agricultural produce needs to be handled in different way. Then there are luxuries. There I put coffee, tea, coca, suger, tobacco, furs, coca, hemp, cannabis, opium etc. These are products that need complete different treatment. Here diversification is necessary.

Diversification is necessary to put different countries in different categories. We can distinguish atleast three different countries. There are countries, which can feed and only feed their own people. Which are not going to be trading, exporting foodstuff. My country is one of those because we are so small we will not be able to export anywhere, anything but wood or forest and we would like to feed our people, like to product our agriculture, our farmers, our crops, our farmers. I have heard here that this situation is so much driving the farmers into suicides. In Finland the situation in not in debt but this situation is killing the farms. In last 10 years, the number of farmers in Finland have decreased. It means that many farmers have become other professionalist because small farmers are unviable.

Then are countries where nature is not able to feed their people. They have to import food in exchange for their exports.

Then are Exporters countries, which have developed strong factual food exporting capacity - even by way of subsidies and productive measures and compete with the developing country production in the world market. Often blamed also for dumping their surpluses into the Southern market for detriment of domestic production there. To establish these kinds of arrangement the World Food Authority is needed. Together they become New World Food order.

This new authority, which I am proposing that could be the form to negotiate these terms of regulation of agriculture in the whole world. It could also be a kind of organisation to supply food when needed. I hope you will concentrate on this idea. Whether it is feasable and whether it is satisfying to bring things together. I am happy that I had the opportunity to present this to you.

Thank you.

The lecture was translated in Hindi by Com. Suneet Chopra.

G. Narender Nath: Now I call upon Prof. K. R. Chaudhary from Andhra Pradesh, he is an eminent economist. He has spoken on globalisation from last 7 to 8 years.

Prof. K. R. Chaudhary: This session is registered as Global Struggles. Just note! that as Global struggles not just for organic farming. Let us discuss the, harmless, wasteless organic farming. Organic farming is very good. I accept it. Today all the troubles of peasants is that we are dependent on external resources. External inputs. Earlier our farmers used to use the inputs that were all farm based. They used their own seeds. Now they have depend on market. They were using the organic manures. Now the fertilizers. They were not much using pesticides. Now they depend upon pesticides. So external inputs are contributing to the rise in cultivational using other trends. That is one aspect. In order to reduce the dependency on external sources, I particularly think we have to reduce the fertilisers, pesticides from foreign countries and also seeds from multinationals. Let us have our own seeds programme. Even the higher variety of seed can be used very safely for 5 years without any reduction. Our farmers are using the seed season after season. No need for going for new seed. Use the same seed safely for 3 to 5 years. That we have to understand. Secondly we have to conserve our biodiversity, our own seeds indigenous seeds. Our scientist can allow. Indian scientists can allow the low varieties, the straight varieties. The hybrid verities lose their vigour. But indigenous variety is more for sustainable agriculture. Andhra Pradesh farmers are known for using the pesticides. Indiscriminately. Need or no need they go on spraying pesticides. 90% of our pesticides are coming from multinational companies. So that dependency is there. Therefore I advocate organic farming or may be integrated pest management. In this connection, we have to think of boycotting not the only the agricultural inputs and production requisites but also agriculture products coming from foreign countries. So boycott. Boycott all agricultural requisites and agricultural products. And 3rd thing is that farmers alone cannot do anything for their survival. It is the policies. Policies are more important. You can work hard. You can produce more and more but if the policies are not favourable to whom we are going to sell? At what price we are going to sell? and for this policies are very important. What about the policies? As I was speaking about the globalisation. Globalisation is nothing but imperialism. Our friend said Globalisation is not the threat. Imperialism is not the immediate threat. Capitalism is the threat. Capitalism is the highest form of imperialism. So it is not enough to oppose only imperialism but also capitalism. We oppose the upper class; we oppose the bourgeois class. We oppose the trade houses. These all have joint ventures to loot the people of this country. Therefore our main enemy is the imperialist countries. Imperialism globalisation I think in our agenda it should be how to oppose imperialism as first and foremost item. How to oppose imperialism ? Our friend said W.T.O. is good, W.T.O. is good. Good for some people. For China it is good because there is lot of business to make. 80% of their exports or G.D.P. comes from exports. It is favourable for China. It is necessary for China. Therefore W.T.O. is good for China. I do not know if it is good for Finland. But it is very bad for us. If it is good, we accept. If it is bad we do not accept. Why it is bad? What is it that we have gained by W.T.O. in the last 8 years? Has it increased our imports of agricultural commodities? Our rulers said at time of signing the W.T.O. that our exports will be expanded. The market will be expanded. so our farmers can grow more and more. They can export. They can get good market. Good price. Good income. Therefore their living conditions can be better. That was assurance given by our rules them. But what has happened now after 8 to 10 years of W.T.O. Whether our exports have gone up? Even today India’s share in international trade is less than 5% to 10%. 0.5% sorry! Not even ½%. Is it useful to us? Say whether W.T.O. is useful to us? Even in 8 to 10 years it has come down from 0.49% to 0.42%. Our share in the international market has come down. Why we are not able to export? Because there is no level playing field. The developing countries have gone far ahead. They are on high and we are low. How can we compete with them? They are giving subsidies to agriculture. In those countries, ranging from 26% to 90%, they are giving subsidies to agriculture. Therefore their cost of production is low. Their prices are low. Whatever small subsidies are given in this country are taken away. At the time of signing it was 3%. Then it came down to 2%. Whereas in America, since 1990-95 onwards it has gone up 700 times. Please note that. Though there is an agreement regarding subsidies for agriculture in W.T.O.. The developed countries had agreed to reduce subsidies by 20%. Even then the subsidies will be vary large. Where as we have only 3%. If we are to reduce. Then what is left? Therefore our prices are high. Our cost of cultivation is high. Therefore it impossible to compete with them. What about the custom tariffs? At Cancun we had demanded reduction in the subsidies of the developed countries. Finland etc. We do not want you to reduce. What we want the countries to reduce which are exporting and distorting the World Trade like America and developed European Union. Unfortunately in E.U. there are only 4 countries which are rich countries. There is no level playing field there also. And customs tariff. See they are varying from 150% to 1000% and exports. On some pretext or other standards. Who sets these standards for imports. Developing countries reject most of our exports. Our crops are rejected by America saying that we are using nylon nets which are harmful. They say we are using more pesticides. The pesticides residues are the proves that they are rejecting. They are even rejecting the frocks. The garments which our children are wearing. On the pretext that they are fire prone. So under some pretext or other they are rejecting our commodities. So what is the use of entering W.T.O. If we come out, what harm it will be. Whether this country will vanish. Whether our agriculture will vanish. Whether we will perish? Whatever ban on imports was there. It has been lifted even before the time limit. Our customs tariff is very low from 15% to 44%. Therefore our markets are flooded with agricultural products of other countries. For example edible oil. Our requirement is 15 lac tonnes. We are importing every year 40 lack tonnes of edible oil in this country. Palm oil, Soya oil from America or Sunflower. 40 lac tonnes of oil is been imported in this country. That has happened. Poor farmers of India growing ground nuts. There is no demand at all. The prices of all manufactured commodities is going up. But the prices of groundnut, coconut, soya are crashing. The result is hundreds of farmers are committing suicides. Not only in Andhra Pradesh but in Karnataka. Even in prosperous Punjab and Haryana the farmers situation is uniform same. Some are committing suicides. Some are not. There are migrations. In Andhara Pradesh under debt the farmers are selling their kidneys even. See the pitiful conditions. Our gates are wide open for multinational companies to loot us. And W.T.O. is facilitating. Therefore we should quit W.T.O. Smash W.T.O. This is what I want to say. Another thing is regarding globalisation. Let us be very clear. Globalisation is against the interest of farmers of this country. Therefore let us oppose globalisation which is imperialist globalisation. And also the other international organisations like I.M.F., World Bank. There also anti-people and anti-farmer. The W.T.O., I.M.F., World Bank and globalisation all these things have to be opposed. For this work, build up mass movement. Militant struggles. Unless and until this is done, there is no solution to this problem. And our peasants will perish. They will not survive. Therefore I want to say that down with imperialistic globalisation. Down with World Bank and I.M.F. down with globalisation.

G. Narendra Nath: Now I call upon Olivier de Marcellus from Sweden. He will talk about people’s globalisation and to give his suggestions.

Hello! I will be very brief. I think you have more the answers than us in Europe.

Intervention: I will introduce you first. Mr. Olivier is from Genewa, Switzerland. But he is a person who had been organising an international struggle to oppose W.T.O. And I think not being a farmer, but he is taking so much of interest. This is really a pleasure for us that today he is with us.

Olivier de Marcellus: Thank you. They other thing I wanted to say I am not a farmer. So I do not know, why I am talking to you. You know the problems better than I do. My father was a farmer but I had never been a farmer. I want to say few things. Trying to say what we could do and what is been done. I completely agree with many things that have been said before. First of all W.T.O.- been man-made laws and there were natural which are broken. I had a terrible thing, before I come here. An official enquiry on Global warming. On effect of global warming on life on earth. They say in 50 years, they expect 1 out of 4 lives to extinct one out of four. 25% of all living things will be extent. Will be destroyed. One can’t even imagine what that means. This is an official report from global change.

Question from audience: “ in how many years”?

In I think 50 years. Within the life - time of my children. With in this century. It is going to happen. The extend of disaster we are preparing with W.T.O. and with this industrial society. It can’t continue. So that is the bad news, I bring. As far as what we can do. I think two things. One is the alternative kind of farming is very - very important. People are trying to do that everywhere. If it can be done in India. It will be able to save lives. When this system crashes. It will crash I think. It will have to crash very quickly. In India, it will be of course even worse than other places. Because there is so much poverty. So many people.

And there are people who are working on not only production. Co-operative production of biological. Infact also directly from production to consumption. Bringing directly to people in their co-operatives. They do not go to anybody selling in the market. One thing we can do is try and bring alternative of this kind. The other thing you know is pressure. That where you know much better than we do. Because Cancun as know is flop because of agriculture and Indian farmers. If Cancun is a failure and Doha is a failure for the capitalist, it is because of the Indian farmers. The Indian minister at Doha held up all night from ten in the evening to four in the morning against all the other countries. It is not because the Indian government is a good govt. It is because they have behind then how many demonstrations? Around 50,000 farmers in all over India. They knew they had to give something. Now the G-20, is the product of the pressure of the farmers. All I have to say is that we have to continue. You have to continue with this struggle. We know this is paying. It is working. If India can come out of W.T.O., obviously it would check the world. May be it will possible to imagine a global day of action of farmers. There will be a global day for farmers on April 16-17 of each year. I don’t think this day had been a day of heavy struggle all over the World. The way we did it;1998 or 1999 at Seattle. We organised demonstrations all over the World at the same time. Big demonstrations.

And may be the farmers should be specific on farming and nature. On what we are doing on this World. Ecologists and farmers together. May be also hearing interesting information because everything is going on in India. I heard from the farmers of Bolivia and Equador. They had exactly the same mechanism and the same problem.

Thank you very much. I have to leave now because the farmers. Some of the farmer’s organisations have invited me to go to the demonstrations. So I want to run out.

Query from Rakesh Manchanda: “ I just wanted to have a small clarification. I appreciate that because of Indian farmers behind our minister in Cancun; the minister withdrew. But to my information while putting up signature process the withdrawal triggered. First, the Africans boycotted, then Brazilians then Chinese.

Since Africans walked out, they could not do anything. So they thought of filling in the gap. I think learning here is important from others that we have to fight not only imperialism but also the Indian capitalism.

Olivier: “Absolutely! I am not saying anything in favour of Indian government. They were forced to put up some kind of show. You force them. That why while I live in Geneva. I do not have quite much faith in U.N.,as you do. U.N. is also totally under the grip of the Americans. So it will good to get out of W.T.O. Same thing will happen in U.N. If there is a popular struggle and popular pressure everywhere controlling the governments.

Thank you!

Hilkka Pietila: “What is your alternative? If you don’t believe in United Nations!

Olivier: “Local struggle! The man was saying. This man was saying what is not good for India we refuse.”

Hilkka Pietila: “No! I mean this has to be regulated internationally also.”

Suneet Chopra: “We can build international unity of farmers organisations.”

Translation in Hindi by Suneet Chopra. For the audience.

N.N. Nath: “We want to throw the discussion open for 15 minutes. Now there is a guest from Pakistan who will share his views with you briefly.

The presentation of Pakistani delegate was in Hindi/Urdu/Punjabi Mix.

The translation in English was done by Suneet Chopra.

“Comrade has pointed out a very important struggle known as Okara Movement, which has been taking place in Pakistan at the moment. He has pointed out that there are farmers who had been farming lands for 100 years and Army wants to cease those lands. There are refusing to move out of their lands. The women are fighting the soldiers when they come. They have driven the army out and they have said that Army will not be allowed to come and take over our lands. At the moment Army has tried its best. They have come. They have attacked. They have shot. They have killed. But they have failed and he has asked that all of us should write to Musharaf and demand that farmers be allowed to remain in control of their land and the Army should not be there.

Mr. Mollah from Karnataka, All India Kissan Sabha, State Council, member was next who spoke in Hindi.

Rakesh Manchanda: My name is Rakesh Manchanda . I am from Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam, New Delhi, India.

We have been hearing about productions, means of productions. How exactly it has been trying to help the ‘haves’ and trying to put forward the survival struggle for have-nots; very – very essential! Whatever I have heard and gained from the speakers; I wish to thank them.

One thing which has been clarified to me is the state of a U.S. farmer. How the farmer getting wheat at Rs. 4.30/kg in U.S. and America subsidising and exporting the same at Rs. 7/kg. apporx. For long we had been hearing the music from I.M.F. They had been telling that, “subsidies on the pattern of

socialism will destroy you”. The same pattern of socialism now utilised by U.S. govt. appearing to subsidise their farmers is infact helping only the middlemen, touts and agro transports only.

One thing which has been missed today on this platform is the survival system based on Basic Life Support. The common man is trying to listen and understand the survival alternatives and techniques in the wheel of production. He is witnessing newer techniques of capitalist’s exploitation by producing surplus. However as you use, while talking to you, I am throwing some bricks and mortars called A,B,C---- in English for you to understand in clear terms. Similarly I use 52 alphabets when I talk in Hindi. In Finland, they use 24 alphabets instead of 26 in English. All these do build up an environment of images. I have seen several times a labour woman from Bihar at the construction site. She is placing bricks on her head and her child is playing nearby. Now she has no time to teach her child. However the child is picking up her dialects and rhymes. So she is able to pass on her language to her.

What I mean to say is that if ‘O’ stands for orange in English language, then ‘O’ also stands for “Ohm’! in holistic Hindi. This means that the images build by 26 English alphabets and 52 Hindi alphabets have a common integrating sound inspite of diverse symbols and letters for understanding. So we cannot teach to child as to how much round the mouth and lips have to be adjusted to inhale air which may vibrate the vocal chords and the sound like ‘O’ comes out. Here ‘O’ may stand for building words like orange or Ohm.

Here the production of communication for alphabets in the brain may be limited but the production of words and building of meaningful sentences which may retrace images is unlimited. Their unlimited production and means of production of communication and empowerment is still free from capitalist intervention. We already know there is no end to thinking and imagination. Yes! on water, on Jungle, on land; the minority capitalism based on human intervention has already moved in. Fortunately, communication still stands liberated; as the survival tool of majority.

We need to talk and debate extensively. This is my humble submission and request.

Next Speaker: “I am from Kerala. I am not working in agriculture but in computer sector and information technology. I would like to hear something about land reforms. I came a bit late. I don’t know whether it was considered. The basic issues we were discussing about the trade and agricultural products. I would like to know more about land reforms. I come from a state where land reforms have been done very early in 1960s. But unfortunately Kerala state could not undergo the Agarian reforms along with land reforms. Because of many political inbalances and such problems and I would like to have some experience if possible from here. Regarding the states of land reforms from various states of India. And areas where land reforms have been successfully done. How did they go forward with their agarain sectors?

This was translation in Hindi

The next speaker, Baljagtap from Maharashtra spoke in Hindi/English about concept of Pesticide manufacturing. Do we have a scientist among us who has worked on eradication of pest genes and supply that seed that will be indigenous? We shall manufacture such seed by Agricultural Scientist. I wish to talk to him. Recently Dr. Bhar Kondkey a well a well known Scientist in India has said that they have tried the same in case of a tomatoes. They have tried to extract the Pest in tomatoes. But any such move is not allowed politically by M.N.C. to enter the market. So what to do in a such a situation? To my understanding we have an alternate in the form of struggle. I hope you have understood my point.”

Intervention in Hindi/ English by Rakesh Manchanda: “I appreciate the gravity of this issue raised. I wish to add. This human intervention which manufactures pesticides for profits, is now precipitating side – effects. Because the main aim of capitalist system is to increase the speed of production by reducing the time factor. So fertilisers were used and very demanded. So I wish to remind us all that in the past five decades the evolution of allopathic medicines are also based on the same or similar pattern. The target of these medicines was to eradicate the disease with a greater speed or with a flick of a second. However using the smokescreen of this speed the English medicine, infact plants the symptoms of four to six more futuristic diseases in the human body.

Today among American doctors this war of words and debate is already going on. Looking at the elevating profit graph of U.S. pharmaceutical the disease pattern showed has not gone down. But interestingly both profit graph and disease pattern graph is elevating high and higher. So while diagnosing the ‘side – effect’ pattern of Pesticides, fertilisers and so called Green Revolution, we also need to understand the similar patterns of side – effects of allopathic medicines. All this need to be understood in a single canvas of human interventions; for a proper and effective line of Action.

Note: the explanations of Narender Nath, Suneet Chopra and Subhash Lomte could not be recorded. Recording instrument was further not available.

For Hindi click here

Courtesy: Service Centre for Development Cooperation Kepa http://www.kepa.fi

Copyleft. Any part of the content on this site can be used, reproduced, or distributed freely by anyone, anywhere and by any means. Acknowledgement is appreciated.

Designed and maintained by CAPITAL Creations, New Delhi. Phone 91-11-26194291