[Prev][Next][Index][Thread]
farm action in Europe
>Press release 12 April 1996
>
>
>
>The European Farmers Coordination is calling on Monday 15 April
>at 11a.m. in Geneva , in front of the WTO Building,for a symbolic
>and pacific demonstration, two years after the signature of the GATT
>agreement, and regarding the present problems of hormons and food.
>
>The demonstration, already announced in Geneva, will go afterwards
>to the WHO (World Health Organisation).
>
>This demonstration is organised by the Swiss (Union des Producteurs
>Suisses, UPS) and french (Confédération Paysanne) members of
>CPE.
>The Union Suisse des Paysans (USP), most important Swiww
>Farmers Union, and the Chambres d'agriculture de Suisse Romande
>are supporting this manifestation and will participate.
>
>
>Please find enclosed the text (4 pages) CPE will present to WTO,WHO and the
>press on 15 April in Geneva.
>
>Durin the demonstration,the two speakers of CPE will be Mrs:
> * Fernand Cuche, member of CPE Board
> Gen. Secr of Union des Producteurs Suisses
> tel/fax: (41) 38511953
> * Laurent Cartier, former member of CPE Board
> member of Comité national de la Confédération
>Paysanne
>(France)
> tel: (33) 25 55 60 04 fax: 33 25 04 66 89
>
>for further information , please call CPE in Brussels: contact: Gérard Choplin
>
>
>
>----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>------------
>------------------------------
>
>PRESS RELEASE
>(rapid translation from french)
>
>
>
>
>
>Geneva, 15 April 1996
>
>
>
>
>15 April 1994 - 15 April 1996
>
> Hormones,
> mad cow disease,
> Pesticides,
> Gentechnologies,
> Food dumping, ....
>
>The neo-liberal effects of GATT and CAP
> are threatening agriculture and health of all !
>
>The interests of the consumer, the farmer, the citizen, the environnment,
>rather than those of industry and trade,
>have to be put to the heart of international regulations
>concerning agriculture and food !
>
>
>
>Two years after the signature of the last GATT Agreement in
>Maarakech, agriculture and food are confronted with major
>problems and stakes, linked directly or indirectly to this
>agreement, to the regulations of the World trade Organisation
>(WTO), and so to other UNO bodies (Codex Alimentarius,
>OMS,..):
>
> * conflict between the European Union (EU) and the USA
>concerning the use of hormones in beef production, where the
>USA are presently complaining at the WTO,
>
> * development of the "mad cow disease" (BSE) in United
>Kingdom and in Europe, linked to a process of industrialisation
>of the production of meat, strongly supported by the
>deregulations and the forced trade advocated by the GATT
>agreement,
>
> * Blair House Agreeement, included in the GATT
>agreement, which did not put an end to food dumping,
>particularly from Northern countries to Southern countries: the
>export subsidies, decreasing, are in fact replaced in USA and
>EU by income direct payments to farmers, and represent
>indirect export subsidies. Moreover social dumping and
>ecological dumping were not handled by the agreeement
>(enclosed the farmers-development NGOs declaration of
>Krefeld on food dumping).
>
> * adaptation of the EU sanitary norms (pesticides,
>vetrinary products,.....), to norms developed by WHO and
>Codex alimentarius, where the influence of industry is more
>significative than the influence of consumers.
>
> * the only possible recourse to scientific criteria to
>authorize or ban a new phyto-sanitary product in agriculture,
>introduced by the GATT Agreement, is not practicable: the BSE
>scandal indicates that the scientists consulted by the
>governments are too often dependant of industry and their
>scientifical objectivity is not guaranteed.
>
> * the forced march of gentechnology industry to open the
>European legislation to a massive, anonymus, lax use of these
>technologies in agriculture and food, in contempt of the
>potential risks for health and environment.
>
>./..
>
>Hormones (see enclosed the declaration and arguments of the European
>Campaign)
>The European Union is resisting well to the pressure of the US government
>and still
>refuses to import hormoned beef. In July 1995 in Roma, during the meeting of
>the Codex
>Alimentarius, the USA let modify at the last second the normal vote
>procedure, in order
>to better influence the decision in favour of a favorable recommandation of
>the famous
>hormones (obtained with 4 votes difference). Such political pressures are
>runing the
>credibility of this UNO body, and the European consumers continue to refuse
>massively
>hormoned meat. The USA and other export countries associated in the complaint
>at
>WTO should reflect upon the image they are giving of their products, when
>they battle to
>sell hormoned meat (see the example of Argentinia, who is supporting the EU,
>to
>comfort its image of quality beef. Neither the farmers nor the consumers
>need hormones:
>the CPE is asking the international bodies, especially the WTO, to give
>priority to the
>needs of the populations and not those of a few firms concerned about their
>only profit.
>
>Mad cows (BSE) (enclosed the CPE press releases)
>This dramatic scandal is the logical result of the industrialisation of
>agriculture , and of the
>economical deregulation implemented by the British Government and advertised by
>WTO. If the finality of agriculture, if the interest of the consumer are
>neglected in favour
>of the race for more yield , for the lowest production costs, such
>aberrations, like
>feeding ruminats with meat are happening ! Therefore CPE, in order to avoid
>the next
>scandal, asks for banning antibiotics introduced systematically in
>feedstuffs: the risk of
>development of resistant bacteria by animals or Humans is already a reality.
>The fact that
>the industrial animal production, especially for poultry and pig, need such
>medicaments in
>food, indicates the sanitary blind-alley of this mode of production.
>
>Pesticides
>Maybe they are, after BSE, the next delay-action bomb: many groundwaters in
>intensive
>agriculture areas in the worls are abounding in pesticides, so much so that
>many drinking-
>water agencies can no more respect the norms. The Institute for world
>resources (USA)
>has just published in March a report which indicates the risks of weakening
>the Human
>immun system through exposition to pesticides, and asks the WHO to launch a
>large
>scale studie. The example of Atrazine indicates that pesticides are agreed
>on the market
>before their risks are correctly evaluated, without mentioning the too
>little studied risks of
>pesticides cocktails, present in the groundwaters. The globalisation of
>trade according
>the present rules of WTO, especillay its phyto-sanitary chapter, eggs on to
>research the
>lowest production costs and can just make the situation worse. for example the
>European Commissionire just proposed to lower the phyto-sanitary norms for
>fruits and
>vegetables to the more las WHO norms.
>
>Gentechnolgies
>This is the field where the governments, under pressure of industry, have
>taken or
>prepare to take incalculable risks for health and environment, in contempt
>of a minimum
>citizen ethic.For example Danish scientist have just demonstrated that the
>genes bringing
>resistance to a herbicide, introduced in a rape sort, are transmitted
>already during the
>second generation to some wild plants of the environnement, from which the
>risk of
>development of non desired resistant plants. Industry wants to extend the
>regulation on
>intellectual property, which is discussed in WTO, to the plants and animals
>genetically
>modified. Thanks to the European Parliament, the EU refused so far to let life
>appropriated by a few firms. Life cannot be so gravely hypotheticated .
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> The European Farmers Coordination (CPE) warns the
>World Trade Organisation, The World Health Organisation, the
>governments, and public opinion about the regulations and
>deregulations implemented on international level on food. They
>should increase trade, "then" increase well-being, it is said. But in
>fact the y increase only trade without well-being, increase also the
>food insecurity and the food industrialisation, with its inevitable
>accompaniment of sanitary problems and underevaluated risks for
>the population.
>
> To eat is an act, a too important value to let it in the
>hands of some "apprentis sorciers" industries and banks
>caring first for their financial interests.
> Time is arrived for farmers and consumers to decide
>together baout the food they wants to produce and to
>consume.
> Facing the risks, the damages of industrialised
>agriculture and food, it is now the time for revolt, for food
>consciousness, for implementation of new agriculture
>policies in favour of a healthy , with identifiable origin,
>diversified,quality food.
>
>
> Geneva, Brussels, 15 April 1996
>
>Are the standards recommended by WHO and FAO
>through the Codex Alimentarius for agriculture and food
> in favour of consumers or industry ?
>
>(complement to the press release presented in Geneva on 15 April)
>
>CPE observes that the international recommendations adressed to the
>governments by
>the Codex Alimentarius are largely unreliable, because the national
>delegations are
>"infiltrated" by representatives of the industries producing the products
>studied by the
>Codex. Because also of the presence of many observers from industry during the
>sessions, there is a big pressure of industry on the debates and
>recommendations.
>
>Example: 19th session of Codex Alimentarius (1989-91) *
> - 105 countries represented, but also 140 representatives of
>industries in the
>Committees,
> - 2578 participants: 660 from industry, 26 from public interest groups,
> - 49% from US delegates, and 61% from Swiss delegates were representing
>industry,
> - Europe and USA represented 60% of the delegates, for only 1% of the
>world
>population !
> - in the Committee "pesticides residues", 23% of national delegates
>and 63% of
>the observers were representatives of the pesticide industry !
> - in the same time, WHO estimates that each year pesticides cause more
>than 3
>million cases of acute poisoning of agriculture workers and about 20,000
>deaths.
>
>CPE asks for the respect of a minimum ethic in The Codex working; otherwise the
>decisions of Codex will not be considered with respect by consumers. The
>setting
>up of international standards regarding pesticides, food additives, food
>lablelling,
>etc.... should have for first priority the sanitary security of the
>consumers, and not,
>as it is presently the case, to facilitate international trade.
>It should not be possible to be judge and party !
>The working of these international bodies has to be reformed urgently.
>Otherwise
>their credibility, already damaged by increasing scandals linked with
>industrialised
>agriculture and industrialised food, will be reduced to nothing.
>
>* see "cracking the codex", a study of National Food Alliance, 1993
>
----
Mark Ritchie
President
Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy
1313 Fifth Street, SE, Suite 303
Minneapolis, MN 55414 USA
tel. 612-379-5980
fax. 612-379-5982
email mritchie@iatp.org
URL: http://www.iatp.org/iatp