FROM: Sandra Finley Saskatoon SK
TO:
Premier Wall, premier AT gov.sk.ca
Members of the Government of Saskatchewan
Saskatchewan Agriculture, Minister Bob Bjornerud, bbjornerud AT mla.legassembly.sk.ca
Saskatchewan Agriculture, Deputy Minister Alanna Koch, alanna.koch AT gov.sk.ca
Manitoba Agriculture, Food and Rural Initiatives, Minister Rosann Wowchuk, minagr AT leg.gov.mb.ca
Manitoba Agriculture, Deputy Minister Barry Todd, dmagr AT leg.gov.mb.ca
Alberta Agriculture and Rural Development Minister, George Groeneveld, highwood AT assembly.ab.ca
British Columbia Agriculture and Lands Minister, Stan Hagen, stan.hagen.mla AT leg.bc.ca
Dean of the College of Agriculture, University of Saskatchewan, Ernie Barber, ernie.barber AT usask.ca
Others
Dear All,
RE:
(1) WTO Doha Round of Trade Negotiations collapse
(2) “A successful World Trade Organization (WTO) agreement is essential for the growth and sustainability of our provincial and national economies.” News Release – July 22, 2008, Government of Saskatchewan (Copy Appended)
I request you to re-evaluate why the Doha negotiations failed, in light of this paragraph:
“ What the spike in food prices has made clear to developing countries is that their food security depends fundamentally not on cheap imports, but on enhancing their capacity to feed themselves. The Doha rules would have further undermined this capacity. “
http://lists.essential.org/pipermail/corp-focus/2008/000296.html
I offer the following for your consideration:
Sound relationships require us to be able to view and honour the world from the perspective of “the other”.
Unhealthy relationships are centred on the self. They breed resentment and ultimately, violence and terrorism.
What is “essential” (Government Press Release) for the “growth and sustainability of our provincial and national economies” fails to take into account what is beneficial to other economies. You will understand from the example of failed marriages that personal economies fall apart in self-centred relationships. It is no different at the societal or international level. The sustainability of our provincial economy is dependent upon healthy relationships. Exploitative relationships must eventually be held together through force. They are not sustainable or fulfilling.
Nor does the export-dependent model, with or without trade barriers, deal with the dependence of our current agricultural regime on cheap fuel. Prudence advises that we re-model with the expectation that fuel is and will become more expensive. It is not the Doha negotiations that are “essential” to our long term well-being.
The growing importance of emerging industrial economies (Brazil, China, India) and the shifting global significance of the G8 economies require a change in our approach. Let me extend the marriage example: “the wife” is empowered. She has money, information and is connected with a support network. She is no longer barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen. The relationship is changed, whether or not you like it. She would like you as an equal, respectful and co-operating partner. But make no mistake, she is capable of going it on her own.
The Doha round of negotiations will succeed when Canada (the Government of Saskatchewan, the Government of Canada), the U.S. and Australia come on-side with other countries in the world. That is quite evident. Canada is fighting for a minority position of self- and corporate-interest. How can that agenda possibly succeed? It is based upon a status quo mindset that no longer exists.
Canadian agricultural policy is profoundly off-side, not only with the majority of countries in the world, but also with the persons who inhabit Canada. The Government is off-side because it pursues the interests of the transnational corporate giants who wish to have even greater control over food production. These corporate interests have an illegitimate ability to patent life forms (food crops) among other problems that should not be foisted upon other countries.
Many Canadians, myself included, have been embarrassed by Canada’s role in international efforts around agriculture. Canada, through a WTO challenge, fought the right of Europeans to prohibit the importation of genetically-engineered food products. We (Canada) tried to sabotage international negotiations to rid food crops of “terminator genes”. By withholding entry visas for respected scientists from Africa and elsewhere to the bio-diversity Convention in Montreal (threats from genetically-engineered crops), we joined the ranks of disreputable countries.
Internally, the Government of Canada, in spite of overwhelming support in the population, steadfastly refuses to require the labelling of genetically-engineered food, herbs, and plant-remedies for health (crops).
Food is absolutely essential to our good health. You are what you eat and drink. It is obvious that the industrialized food supply is having disastrous consequences for health and for our over-burdened, expensive healthcare system. Yet this is the system we would impose on other countries.
Until the Government gains the respect and support of its own people, it certainly cannot expect to command the respect and co-operation of persons overseas. The Doha negotiations will not succeed until the Governments in Canada change their philosophy and strategies.
The failure of the Doha negotiations is the feedback from countries that have become significantly more important players in global negotiations. Your appropriate response to the feedback will help determine whether we learn, change and move forward.
Try as you might, you cannot impose an industrial model of agriculture on the world. People have observed the consequences, have ample experience with the outcomes and do not like them. Industrial agriculture puts producers out of business. It leads to a dangerous concentration of corporate power, greater environmental pollution, malnutrition in industrialized states and now striking food shortages (starvation) in developing countries.
People in Africa cannot feed themselves with crop production based on cheap export coffee grown so that we in Saskatchewan can sip iced lattes and expressos. We are engaged in exploitation and manipulation of information (the rhetoric and propaganda around agricultural production), a relationship centred on “the self”.
I wish for a return to Canadian foreign relationships that I can feel right about – foreign relationships that will improve the long-term sustainability of our economy. I hope you will see the connection. Agricultural policies that promote the interests of industrial agriculture (monoculture, genetically-engineered, patented (corporate-owned) seeds, loss of bio-diversity, pollution that leads to, just one example, the dead zones in the Gulf of Mexico from nitrogen run-offs from industrial agriculture, etc.) are not sustainable. They lead to the present situation of extreme food shortages.
Starving people will resort to violence and terrorism against those who did the imposing and the rape of resources, for their own self-interest. And then we must spend MORE money on “defence”. An economy dependent upon going to war is not sustainable in the long run. It bankrupts financially and morally.
It would indeed be refreshing if you would stop using the “growth” myth and mantra. Most people understand that we live on a finite planet whose resources are under severe stress. That stress is not only reflected in the ever-increasing scarcity of water and fossil fuels but also in high rates of cancer, autoimmune diseases, developmental problems in children, environmental pollution, the extinction of species and so on.
Globalization means that other countries have access to more and better information. It means that Canadians can dialogue with persons in other nations. Through access to information (distinct from propaganda and industry-financed “science”, independent of the media) the truth will eventually be exposed. As persons become empowered, the manipulator is unmasked.
“ What the spike in food prices has made clear to developing countries is that their food security depends fundamentally not on cheap imports, but on enhancing their capacity to feed themselves. The Doha rules would have further undermined this capacity. “
Agriculture in Canada lags behind the understanding of persons in developing countries. We were significant contributors to the failure of the Doha negotiations through our failure to support the need of developing countries to feed themselves. If they require tariff barriers to protect their agricultural producers, as Canada has needed, then so be it. Support them.
I urge you, in your negotiations and arguments to sincerely desire better for “the other”. All the efforts of Canadians should be aimed at enhancing the capacity of people everywhere to feed themselves.
It is equally prudent for Canadians to strive for self-sufficiency in our own food production. The rising costs of fuel and the concomitant costs, not only of production, but also of transporting food stuffs around the globe will move imported avocado salad in January beyond the reach of most persons.
I look forward to intelligent, forward-thinking and appropriate (not self- or corporate- centred) response to the feedback from the majority of other countries at the Doha round of negotiations.
Thank-you for your consideration.
Sandra Finley