WTO kills farmers - a message from South Korea (Lee Kyung-Hae)

(The world was shocked when the Korean farmer, Kyung-Hae Lee, deliberately sacrificed his life during a demonstration against the WTO in Cancun, Mexico, in September 2003. Lee had struggled all his life for the survival of small farming and against WTO. This is the text that he distributed in Geneva, during a month-long hunger strike in front of WTO, in March 2003.)

Recognise the Truth and Exclude Agriculture from WTO !

I was born on a farm, and was a young farmer who developed a dairy farm with his own hands on a harsh, mountainous land, after graduating
agricultural high school and university in Korea. In the lower valley, I also had small paddy land for rice farming, inherited from my father. With other fellow farmers in the group, I tried to contribute to my village, my community and my country by carrying on my lovely occupation – farming.
With such modest hopes and dreams, we worked hard from dawn to moon rising....

 http://www.all4all.org/2004/03/629.shtml


Market and Farmer
Shri Vijay Jawandhiya, India

Once upon a time India was said to be a golden bird. Even today Indian
economy is mostly based on agriculture. A phrase was very much known here `uttam kheti, madhyam vyapar, kanishtha nokari’ means `best is farming, medium is business, base/ lowest is service’. But today it is believed `best is to serve, medium is business, worst is farming’. Everybody needs food to live - and the food producer is in pain. He is committing suicides.

 http://www.all4all.org/2004/03/642.shtml


Does the WSF need an Ideology?
Kishen Pattnayak

Kishen Pattnayak, of the National Association of People's Movements (NAPM) of India, is one of the most prominent Gandhian activists and thinkers. The following text was actually written as a critique of WSF, but the second part, with its reflexion on the failure of the old left to fundamentally criticise the ideal of economic growth, "prosperity", and on the disaster awaiting industrial society, has a direct bearing on the defense of small farming.
This text seems important because there was a consensus at the PGA meeting in Mumbai that the defense of agriculture is the centerpiece of a much wider problem: the defense of all forms of life that are urgently menaced precisely by economic growth and its consequences - in particular (but not only) global warming. Recent scientific research on the consequences of climate change (published in the journal Nature) concludes that 1 out of 4 (25 percent!) of the
1000 species studied will be EXTINCT in 2050.
If we continue with "growth", industrialisation and urbanisation we will destroy small farming globally and we will destroy the planet.

 http://www.all4all.org/2004/03/634.shtml


Per un’altra agricoltura e alimentazione
A contribution from Italy by Mariarosa Dalla Costa

Per un’altra agricoltura e un’altra alimentazione in Italia. La novità nel mondo agricolo in Italia identificabile nel passaggio da un sindacalismo classico, che contrattava le condizioni di lavoro ma restava indifferente a cosa e come si produceva, all’azione per un’altra agricoltura, che pone al centro l’interrogarsi sulle finalità e il senso del lavoro contadino, la riflessione a tutto campo sul mestiere di agricoltore, può apparire un fatto tardivo se paragonato ad altre esperienze in paesi a capitalismo avanzato.

 http://www.all4all.org/2004/03/664.shtml


More Texts and Debates:
Discussions about the movement and strategy:  http://www.nadir.org/nadir/initiativ/agp/new/en/discuss.htm

Bulletins and Leaflets:  http://www.nadir.org/nadir/initiativ/agp/infopool/agitprop/index.html

Library of Articles on Globalisation, War and other themes (by author):  http://www.nadir.org/nadir/initiativ/agp/free/9-11/indexauthor.htm

see also:  http://www.nadir.org/nadir/initiativ/agp/campanas/tierra/

 http://www.agp.org