Context:  The free market in foodstuffs in claimed to be the best solution to world hunger. According to this dogma, the elimination of trade barriers allows all countries to profit from their comparative advantatges, which in turn benefits local communities because in this way, we are assured, they will be able to buy imported foodstuffs at lower prices.

After the Uruguay round, while the countries of  the South have been obliged to remove subsidies for agricultural productions, subsidies for farmers in the northern countries have been strengthened.
Far from eradicating hunger, trade liberalisation is worsesning the problem of insecurity of food supply by forcing the South’s  producers to compete, at a disadvantage, eith subsidised agricultural systems od the capital/intensive North.

At the same time, trade liberalisation is spreading the exploitation of the Earth’s  biodiversity, encouraging the processes leading to a concentration of land ownership, increasing  the rural worker’s dependence on transnational corporations and promoting these corporations’monopolisaation of genetic and agricultural resources.

The international meeting “Food and Agriculture in  South-North  Relations” is part of  the informative  project “Natural Resources, Biodiversity and Interdepencencein South-North Relations”. This is a programme of information, education and raising public awareness. It has the following aims:
? create public awareness of the social and environmental repercussions of  this model of development in the food and agricultural sector
? help those persons and groups working against the inequality and injustice caused by this econonmic model, by giving them the chance to express their views

 
PROGRAMME

Block 1
- Trade Globalisation: Impact on food production and trade flows between South and North.

First Session: Thursday Evening

Discussion:
- Trade Globalisation: The role of the multinationals and development agencies. The role of other development actors (development agencies, developmental NGOs,  financial institutions, governments). Social and economic consequences.

Contents:
-  WIDE.- A feminist critique of the Neo-liberal, market oriented, view of the economy; Alternatives to Neo-liberalism; Gender and Environment (Agriculture)
- Speaker from the South. The agricultural model in countries of the South. Disadvantages fro trade, with globalisation.
- Bob Sutcliffe (HEGOA). (Department of Applied Economics, University of Bilbao) Economic globalization and the ‘development machine’. The role NGOs, financial institutions  and of the multinationals.
- Henk Hobbelink (GRAIN). The privatisation of biodiversity and knowledge of biodiversity. The importance of the traditional system of innovation. The role of the multinationals in the development model.
Moderator: Mbuyi Kabunda (SODePAZ)*

*  It is important to note that the role of the Moderator is not only to introduce the participants, but also to make a summary of all of the contributions which will be incorporated into his own presentation, at the end.

Block 2
? Impact of the agricultural model on different social sectors and on natural resources

Second Session: Friday evening
Discussion
Topics to be discussed:

a) Natural Resources
- Soil erosion and desertification processes.
- Over-use of water resources in monocultures and irrigated crops, especially in arid and semi-arid zones.
- Reduction of biodiversity and the monopolisation of seed varieties
- Monocultures, pests and pesticides- a vicious circle. Effects on health and environment.
- Exportation of non-adapted and obsolete technology from North to South.
b) Social sectors
- Rural workers: trade unions and farming cooperatives (land reform)
- Indigenous movements and cultural diversity
- Women and agriculture
-    Consumers in the North

Helen Groome (EHNE, union of Basque farmers): Sovereignty of foodstuffs and repercussions for the environment
Montse Peiron (CEIC, Centre for Resources and Research regarding Consumption ) The impact on consumers of the agricultural model.
Palestinian Hydrology Group (PHG): Geo-ppolitics of water resources in the Mediterranean.

Moderator: Isabel Bermejo (AEDENAT)

Third session:  Saturday 6th, all day

Block 3
? Practical experience: proposals and alternatives to the existing model.

Morning: Three simultaneous conferences, with speakers in groups of two (discussion in small groups)

a) Agricultural cases
- Organic farming in Cuba (ANAP)
- The struggle for land ownership. The social movement of the M.S.T. (landless workers) in Brazil
- The use of water resources in Palestine (PHG)
- Communal and sustanaible forest mangement in Ecuador. (OPIP)
- Project of recovery of varieties of rice. Encouraging biodiversity and the struggle for land (MASIPAG, Phillipine Islands)
- Alternative proposals for conserving genetic resources (Farida Akhter, Bangladesh)
- Rural settlements and agro-ecology in Andalusia. (Eduardo Sevilla Guzman. Instituto Sociológico de Estudios Campesinos)
- The importance of  family farming. Responses to the agricultural policies of the European Union (the CAP). Pilar Galindo (Coordinator of farming and livestock organisations).

b) Experiences of commercialisation:
- Cooperativer of Fair Trade products, MCCH (Ecuador) or CEIBO (Bolivia)
- Relations between public restaurants  and native produce sectors in Peru. (TMB).  Miriam Bustamante
- Cooperative of local consumers in the North. GERMINAL
- Regional market project in North Africa, not based on free-market liberalism. Fatiha Talahite

Chaired debate:
? Fair trade: Is it a tool or an alternative for mobilising movements critical of the unequal situation of interdependence north- South?
Participants: Xavier Montagut (SODEPAU), Osvaldo (Equimercado), Rafael Sanchez (INTERMON), Fundació Pau i Solidaritat
Moderator: Rafael Grasa, President, Catalan Federation of NGDOs.

Block 4
? New technologies in food and agriculture. Lack of transparency, monopolisation and possible dangers of transgenic foodstuffs.

Fifth session: Sunday morning
Discussion

- Paco Fernandez Buey (Pompeu Fabra University). Epistemological critique of biotechnology. The subordination of science to the political and economic powers.
- Isabel Bermejo (AEDENAT) Social and environmental consequences of  genetic manipulation.
- Memeber of  GRAIN: The need for another research paradigm. From genetic reductionism to systematic thought.
- Verena Stolcke (Anthropologist, Barcelona Autonomous University) Gender and technological research.

Moderator: Gregorio Alvaro Campos (AEDENAT)
 
CONCLUSIONS AND CLOSE OF MEETING J.M. Navarro