‘Food Should Be Left Off the Free Trade Table’

Jonathan Schell:

One of the questions I want to ask you is, what name do you prefer for this global movement?

José Bové:

Well, you asked me before about the term "globalization." The problem is that in French and in English, we don't have the same words. I remember in Seattle, we were talking about corporate globalization. That's very clear to everyone. Who wants that? In France it is more complicated, because we're not just talking about corporate globalization, we're talking about "mondialisation." And this is a positive word. Because we don't know about what kind of globalization we're talking about.

In France, we had to find a new word, and it should be a positive word. And the first time in the newspaper they called it "anti- mondialisation," against mondialisation. So we found a new word: The Belgian people came up with "alter-mondialisation," which means another type of globalization. When we talk about globalization now in France, it's very clear that it's corporate globalization. But when we talk about alter-mondialisation, it refers to different kind of issues. That's why the symbol of this is what we said at Porto Alegre at the World Social Forum: "Another world is possible."

I don't say another world is possible. I'm like Marcos, the Mexican writer, who says, "Other worlds are possible." For different populations we have different ways of life, and it's very dangerous to consider everybody in the same way – either good or bad. We need to find different kinds of solutions for different kinds of problems.

Via Campesina's main issue is about globalization – about the fact that we don't believe that free trade is good for agriculture and food all over the world. And that's why we decided to invent a new concept, which is "food sovereignty." It means that each population should be able to eat from its own agriculture. The main issue for the farmers is to feed the population where they live: their own families, the local market, and then the national market.

We believe that it is most important to protect local agriculture from dumping imports. Over 90 percent of food is produced where people live. So we don't understand – and nobody can explain to us – why we need to have free trade for food; that is going exactly in the wrong direction. So this is roughly our principal fight.

Also, we talk within Via Campesina about agrarian reform, landless people, about what we call peasant agriculture.

We also talk about the problems of seeds – the possibility for farmers to use their own seeds – and also the WTO rules on patents. We are fighting to have seeds free of patents; that's why we are fighting specially against GMOs. Even if GMOs had no ecological problems or health problems, we would also be against GMOs on this specific issue: the fact that farmers can't use their own seeds. So these are some of the examples of the troubles of Via Campesina. This is getting bigger and bigger.

Gustav Ranis:

You say you're not against trade. I'm trying to understand how far you would take your argument. … But when you say that we should all be self-sufficient, that could be another way of saying that no matter what the efficiency level is, we should be self-sufficient. Most economists would say that's a high price to pay for self-sufficiency. You don't think Saudi Arabia should be self-sufficient with food, I'm sure? Or countries that have no capability of producing food?

José Bové:

When we say that we need food sovereignty, it of course does not mean that all the countries have to be able to grow all they need for their own people. Very small countries may sometimes be difficult, so several countries can work together. The problem is to be able to feed their population or to decide at what level they want to protect their own agriculture. Maybe it could be 100 percent; it could also be 70 percent. Some countries have to import because it's impossible for them to grow their agriculture. So the countries should be able to decide themselves at what level they want to protect their agriculture.

And right now, it's not possible. We saw it in Asia and Africa, with the WTO rules, which impose importing at least 4 percent of their production. Even if they have enough, they have to open their doors to productions from outside. That's why Indonesia is fighting after the tsunami, saying, "We don't want to open our doors to food coming from outside. We have enough rice, and if we open our doors, all the prices will go down." So it's very important that countries or groups of countries be able to protect themselves from dumping.

But we know clearly that, for example, for food and for agriculture, the world price makes no sense. It's only, in general, the surplus of the production of the big countries – Europe and US for example. So it's impossible for farmers from a country to live if they sell these products at a world price.

Gustav Ranis:

The second part of my question is where you draw the line? Do you want the same thing for textiles, for example, or for steel?

José Bové:

When I say agriculture, the main issue is that most of the people on earth are working with agriculture. The second problem about textile or other industries: Something quite new is happening – competition. A lot of factories in Europe and United States offshore their production in southern countries only to have lower costs of production for labor. This doesn't change a lot about what comes back to the southern countries, because most of this money goes back to the big transnational corporations.

If we look at all the money which is going all over the earth with globalization, we see that more than two-thirds of this money goes only to the transnational corporations – or it's money from one transnational to another one. Only one-third is really going to the people or to the countries. This is a really big problem.

I don't think that we have to fight against offshoring. But what kind of rules should we have to give the profit to the people? For the moment, there is no benefit for the workers.

James Scott:

It seems to me that, with respect to efficiency, for any economic activity, one can also ask what kind of people is this economic activity producing? If you think of the product as people, then it seems to me that a person or a household manages who their own enterprise – whether they're artisans or small farmers or fishermen – are people who live relatively autonomous and independent lives. This is the Jeffersonian citizen who is capable of being a successful citizen in a democracy because they have to manage their farm, their property.

If we're interested in environmental values over the long run, then we would also want to encourage small household farms – or maybe large-household farms – that we're at least passing on this land often within the family, not speculating on land.

On the other hand, I'm sympathetic to Gus's point about different kinds of commodities and trade. So it seems to me that because there was cheap land, all of the (what we call) "white settler colonies" – America, Argentina, to some extent Brazil, Australia, and so on – because they had land that they could throw the native peoples off and take over at no cost really, they specialized historically in the major grains: maize, wheat, and so on. They now control world trade in soybeans, maize, grain. I think it's possible to restore this world; one has to live with this fact.

For things that need to be produced closer to the point where they're consumed – lettuce, raspberries, all kinds of perishable goods that are a large part of people's diet – those are the best subjects, those are the best commodities in which local food sovereignty seems to me to make the most sense.

José Bové:

Maybe I doubt that you say the specialization of some countries on some kind of condition. I'm not sure if this can be changed.

We can change this in Europe. We can make more vegetable proteins because we make too much corn, too much wheat. Same thing in Brazil: Instead of making so much soya, we could use agriculture to feed the population. More than 60 million people now don't eat correctly in Brazil. So this is a change of the policy. Of course, with Australia or New Zealand, the population is so little, so they export most of their agriculture.

Laura Wexler:

You spoke about sufficiency in terms of the farmer. I'm interested in what your organization thinks about the migrant laborer, the workers – who are not farmers – who work on the farms. What do you think about their situation as you go forth in this campaign?

José Bové:

Of course, our organization works also with the workers that work on the big enterprises, especially for sugar and fruit. They work with us; we have the same problem also in Europe, because we see that most times in this kind of enterprise there are more and more migrants involved – and illegal migrants.

We have this, of course, in South America, Asia – so it's a difficult situation for them. That's why we are trying to work with the United Nations human rights commission to write the rights of the farmers and workers.

The second step is agrarian reform: giving land to landless people. Because very often people who are in these work conditions are former farmers or small farmers who have put out of their land by big enterprise.

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