STWR - Share The World's Resources

16th March 07 - Student Trade Justice Campaign

Every year, Oklahoma farmers grow lots of fresh, healthy produce - so much so that a good amount gets exported out of state.  It is quite perplexing for food and health experts, then, that Oklahoma leads the nation in “food-insecure hunger”. Food security, which goes hand in hand with fighting poverty, is defined as the access to foods that ensure a healthy and active lifestyle.  The situation in Oklahoma, therefore, is such that farmers are exporting healthy produce while rural food insecurity continues to contribute to hunger and poverty.  This exporting of healthy foods that could otherwise be provided locally to rural households, however, is just one symptom of a much broader, distorted trade model that dominates current farm policy here and abroad - and again, with tragic consequences.

The neoliberal model of trade in farm policy, as in other areas, operates under a “export-oriented” model of production - that is, the emphasis is placed on producing as much as possible in order to earn income by exporting to external markets.  Farmers earn “export-earnings” by gaining access to external markets.  As with wheat farmers in Oklahoma, farmers in developing nations are also encouraged to concentrate their production on traditional “export crops” such as cotton, coffee, and cocoa.  The consequences of this “export-oriented” model of trade, in Oklahoma and in West Africa, can be devastating to families and farmers.  Not only does this model overlook the inequities of food security and hunger that exist on a regional and local level, but it also allows a production “free-for-all” that is dominated by huge agribusiness corporations like Archer-Daniels Midland, Monsanto, and Syngenta.  Corporations such as these receive billions of dollars of subsidies each year to increase production and gain access to foriegn markets - unlike the majority of the small farmers of rural America and the developing world, who do not get a cent of support from their governments.

These small farmers are, therefore, expected to compete with huge industrial farms that can export their crops far below the cost of prodcution - leaving small farmers in a highly vulnerable position not only in finding markets, but in sustaining their way of life as well.  For many rural counties in America, food security is essential to sustaining healthy homes and fighting hunger and poverty.  But unfortunately, American farm policy has not served rural America, or the developing world, as well as one would hope.  In developing nations, small farmers have a similar notion of food security that sustains the safety and sustainability of their food systems and their way of life - that notion is known as “food sovereignty”.  Food sovereignty not only encompasses the right of access to healthy foods, but a whole host of domestic policies that guarantees the strengthening of their local community, the sustainable cultivation and preservation of land and resources, and a sovereign right to decide what to produce and how much.  Rather than allowing market forces decide for farmers what to grow and how much, the concept of food sovereignty allows farmers to provide first and foremost for the needs of their local community and families.

As the 2007 Farm Bill begins to be discussed, both farmers in rural America and in the developing world are calling upon lawmakers to expand the policy initiatives that provide food security for rural communities and food sovereignty for developing nations who wish to become less vulnerable to market forces dominated by big agribusinesses.  Encompassing things like Conservation Security Programs, conservation easements, Community Food Security Projects, Farmers Markets projects, and funding for rural development inititatives, Congress can give small farmers in America the space to serve the needs of their own families and communities first and foremost.  And, by reigning in the power of agribusinesses and the unfair market concentration they have - not to mention unfair subsidies - Congress can also begin to give small farmers in the developing world space to foster sustainability in their own communities as well.

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